As the saying goes, if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. La Cocina (The Kitchen) focuses on a fast-food restaurant in Times Square, New York. Source: Australian Catholics.
The Grill is not a place for people who cannot work fast and hard and who are unaccustomed to the frenzy of service and the heated language that goes with it.
Most of the staff are illegal immigrants, the undocumented, desperate to get papers to afford them an outside chance of chasing the American dream. It is loosely based on a 1957 play, The Kitchen, by Arnold Wesker.
The film is long and quite bleak. The lives of the workers are so hard and unrewarding and there seems to be little hope of change for the better for them. They are poorly paid, manipulated and know it, but this is better than life back in Mexico. Or is it?
The romance between Pedro (Briones) and Julia (Mara) is fevered and unlikely. He is a romantic and older, she has been around the block a few times and has a child. She is pregnant and a decision has to be made.
The heat is turned up when $800 goes missing from the takings and all the kitchen staff are under suspicion. The manager distrusts them all and Pedro is on two strikes before being fired because his temper is volcanic. A new staff member, Estala (Diaz) watches as the drama unfolds, much as we do.
This film takes an inside look the dynamics of the professional kitchen. This is all about speed of service and teamwork. It is manic behind the swing doors – a culinary chaos.
There were some lovely passages of music, symphonic and aggrandising, but perhaps needed more of a discordant jazz sound to complement the maelstrom of emotion in some scenes. My Kitchen Rules it is not, but a salutary take on the reality of those working behind the scenes so others can dine out, impervious to the hard-knock lives those behind the kitchen doors lead.
La Cocina (The Kitchen) Starring: Raul Briones, Rooney Mara, Anna Diaz, Oded Fahir, James Waterston, Eduardo Olmos. Director: Alonso Ruiz Palacios. 239 minutes. MA15+
Review by Ann Rennie, Jesuit Media
FULL REVIEW
La Cocina (Australian Catholics)
