Like a paintbrush, a camera can splash vivid sensual colors on the screen. Picture freshly shucked oysters, vibrant yellow egg yolks, melted chocolate poured over a cake then dusted in gold as a chef puffs the powder from the palm of his hand. Meet that chef, Adam Jones (Bradley Cooper), who in his drinking and drugging chef apprenticing Paris days burnt so many relationships that his self-imposed recovery program mandates that he shuck one million oysters, literally, in New Orleans.
Like a paintbrush, a camera can splash vivid sensual colors on the screen. Picture freshly shucked oysters, vibrant yellow egg yolks, melted chocolate poured over a cake then dusted in gold as a chef puffs the powder from the palm of his hand. Meet that chef, Adam Jones (Bradley Cooper), who in his drinking and drugging chef apprenticing Paris days burnt so many relationships that his self-imposed recovery program mandates that he shuck one million oysters, literally, in New Orleans.
Keeping tally in his leather bond notebook, Jones scratches the last pencil mark then walks out mid-shift to re-establish his ambitions. He travels to London, challenging a friend from the past, the maitre’d Tony (Daniel Bunuel) at a swank London restaurant gone stale: Make him lead chef to earn the coveted Michelin three stars.
The visuals entice and the plot seems intriguing, but Cooper’s acting as the main dish just seems to fizzle for trying too hard, a forced recipe gone awry. Most movie audiences are pretty generous, but when the story lines becomes too predictable and are weighed down even further with bland chemistry between the protagonist and his female sidekick, Helene (Sienna Miller), the movie experience starts to fall apart.
Still, any foodie can only love the cinematography that showcases late night food stalls offering up mouth-watering treats. And the camera tutors us on high-end kitchens, the ones that qualify a frying pan as a museum relic. Instead, we learn how modern chefs cook fish, for example, in plastic bags at low temperatures, which seals in piquant flavors. These modern kitchens appear futuristic with their newfangled machines strewn everywhere.
In the end, though, we also learn the low-tech method the Michelin restaurant critics use — showing up without any notice. Just that anticipation does juice the movie’s momentum some.
Not enough, however, to develop 3-D complex characters. Stereotypes abound. The lesbian food critic regrets that she slept with Jones, yet she just had to because he is that “good” the implication goes. His colleague Tony, a kind and consummate professional, pines for Jones, the handsome straight guy, as if Tony’s choices in a city like London are that limited. And the black guy who seems to show real courage by forgiving Jones for his ethical trespasses when he was an addict and drunk turns out to be the villain chef. Cooking up real characters requires savory not stereotypical flavor. Anybody truly prefer margarine over butter?
And yet Jones’ change, the character transformation that we all cheer for at the movies, does happen in the second half of the movie. Jones actually becomes quiet, confident, and still as he relinquishes to his first-ever authentic recovery program — the one that brings him to truly need other people. For example, the first time that the kitchen believes the Michelin food critics have arrived, he prepares the plates for them by himself, a solo kitchen maestro who stands at the center while others only watch; he asks them to give him some space. But later when the real Michelin critics arrive, he now yells out for the entire crew to work as a team. By the movie’s close, he can even share a meal with his newly adopted family, the entire kitchen staff, as they all sit down to break bread.