Cast: Joan Chen, Julianna Margulies, Mercedes Ruehl, Kyra Sedgwick, Alfre Woodard, Victor Rivers, Isidra Vega, Douglas Spain, Francois Chau, Will Yun Lee, Kristy Wu, Lainie Kazan, Maury Chaykin, Dennis Haysbert, Ann Weldon
Director: Gurinder Chadha
Producer: Jeffrey Taylor
Screenplay: Gurinder Chadha, Paul Mayeda Berges
Cinematography: Jong Lin
Music: Craig Pruess
U.S. Distributor: Lions Gate Films
What's Cooking?, a product of the increasingly less prestigious Sundance Institute Writer's Lab, is the latest motion picture to explore the rather obvious links between cooking and life. Set in a middle class Los Angeles neighborhood, the film follows four families through the trials and tribulations of Thanksgiving dinner. Director Gurinder Chadha (Bhaji on the Beach) has aspirations of entering Robert Altman ensemble territory with this feature, but, just as the cinematic batter is beginning to reach the right consistency, she adds too many unnecessary ingredients - like overt melodrama and silly, surprise twists - and the mixture goes bad. With a Beach Boys tune playing on the soundtrack, the movie concludes on an improbable note.
Chadha's idea is to explore the similarities and differences of how four families celebrate that uniquely American holiday - Thanksgiving. Each has a different ethnic heritage: Vietnamese, Latino, African American, and Jewish. One of the director's goals is to contrast the cultural differences while highlighting the universality of some themes and issues, such as intolerance and strife within families. None of the dinners goes smoothly, with long-buried secrets coming to light and simmering conflicts exploding into the open. Unfortunately, the louder the arguments get, the more overwrought the acting becomes in the face of an increasingly melodramatic screenplay. By time the climax reaches the screen - a "message moment" that is so painfully preachy and over-the-top that it's offensive (even though I agree with the underlying politics) - What's Cooking? has been transformed from a low-key examination of family dynamics into an exercise in stridency and manipulation. It's a bad recipe.
It takes about a third of the film to get all of the characters and relationships straight, although, for a film employing so many speaking parts, What's Cooking? does a reasonably good job of avoiding unwarranted stereotypes in the quest to give each individual a personality. In fact, if there's one thing to be argued in What's Cooking?'s favor, it's that the characters are nicely developed and effectively realized. The contrived nature of their circumstances and relationships is what creates problems. And, while there is subtlety and craft evident in some of the performances, their potential power is undermined by the amateurish approach embraced by some of the less seasoned actors. The effect of having veteran performers like Joan Chen, Alfre Woodard, Mercedes Ruehl, and Dennis Haysbert working alongside inexperienced co-stars creates a lack of consistency and balance. Some of the lesser talents can't keep up.
The four families highlighted by the production - the Avilas, the Seeligs, the Williamses, and the Nguyens - represent different aspects of American society (it is worth noting that, with the exception of a few supporting characters, there are no Caucasians in this movie). Each has their own mini crisis to deal with. For the Avilas, it's the return home of the philandering patriarch, who is welcomed by the men of the family, but not by the women - and especially not by his wife, Elizabeth (Mercedes Ruehl). The Seeligs are going through a period of adjustment as Herb and Ruth (Maury Chaykin and Lainie Kazan) welcome home their lesbian daughter, Rachel (Kyra Sedgwick), and her lover, Carla (Julianna Margulies). Meanwhile, the Nguyens are struggling with assimilation issues. While Trinh (Joan Chen) and Duc (Francois Chau) strive to maintain traditional Vietnamese values, their children have other ideas. Their daughter, Jenny (Kristy Wu), is dating a white guy. Their son, Jimmy (Will Yun Chau), avoids coming home for Thanksgiving so he can spend time with his girlfriend (who happens to be a member of the Avila clan). And another son, Gary (Jimmy Pham), has a gun hidden under his bed. Finally, the conflict in the Williams household is between Audrey (Alfre Woodard) and her mother-in-law, Grace (Ann Weldon). Audrey's husband, Ronald (Dennis Haysbert) is of little help because he's always working. And the politics-based rift between Ronald and his son, Michael (Eric K. George), has made Thanksgiving a grim affair.
Perhaps the most interesting metaphor employed by Chadha is the turkey. Each of the four Thanksgiving dinners features one at the centerpiece, but, in every case, the method of preparation is as different as the side dishes that accompany it. Obviously, we're meant to associate food preparation with culture. With the way the camera lingers on the dozens of dishes decorating a quartet of tables (not to mention the time spent with the characters in the kitchens beforehand), it's apparent that Chadha is trying to tempt our taste buds in much the same way that movies like Babette's Feast and Big Night did. (The cinematographer, Jong Lin, lensed Ang Lee's Eat Drink Man Woman.) For whatever the reason - perhaps because there's no sensuality associated with the way the food is prepared and presented - the desired effect is not achieved. Once What's Cooking? finished unspooling, I was not gripped by an uncontrollable urge to have a turkey dinner. In fact, food was not high on my list of priorities.
It's ironic that Chadha masters the most difficult aspects of the ensemble movie, like giving all of the characters enough screen time and keeping the story from becoming too choppy or fragmented, but has trouble with some of the basics (fashioning drama without going over-the-top, for example). I enjoyed this movie up to a point - then the overdose of melodrama set in. The first half of What's Cooking? is an engaging (although certainly not groundbreaking) slice of drama; the second half is about as unbearable as fingernails scraping across a blackboard. And that's the kind of teeth clenching irritation that no number of solid performances, good intentions, and picture perfect Thanksgiving spreads can insulate. In trying to make the definitive American family drama, this British director has forgotten a basic rule of the genre - simplicity is better. The quieter the situations, the more heartfelt the drama. The obvious theatrics employed by Chadha do a great disservice to both her characters and her audience. Depending on your perspective, What's Cooking? can be seen as overdone, underdone, or just plain half-baked.
© 2000 James Berardinelli