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WHAT'S COOKING? Send This Review to a Friend
Plenty is cooking in Gurinder Chadha's wonderfully entertaining, holiday-oriented but perennially relevant new film with a title that ends with a question mark but makes its points with exclamation marks. Chadha, a Kenyan-born Englishwoman of Indian descent, who directed the charmingly ethnic film "Bhaji on the Beach," has turned her attention to an American institution that has fascinated her--the celebration of Thanksgiving. The script was written in collaboration with her husband Paul Mayeda Berges, whose background includes a Japanese heritage, and their perspective has enabled them to open a window onto American life that encompasses a present-day ethnic mix.
Thanksgiving is a handy focal point--it might also have been Christmas--when families congregate with all of the baggage that members may bring to the table. "What's Cooking?" focuses on not one but four Los Angeles families, The Avilas, who are Latino, the Nguyens, who are Vietnamese, The Seeligs, who are Jewish, and the Williams family, who are African-American. As dramas are played out in each household, we get to see the differences and the similarities, and Chadha deftly juggles the action in cutting between them as the various crises escalate.
The acting is all top-drawer. In the Avilas home, Mercedes Ruehl is impressive as Elizabeth, whose estranged husband had temporarily taken up with another woman and who has acquired a new boyfriend during the husband's absence. What happens when one of the couple's children invites their father to dinner unbeknownst to mom, who is planning to surprise the family by introducing her new man?
Over at the Nguyens, Joan Chen gives a strong performance as Trinh, who is finding her children a problem as they rebel in the context of life in America. A son is getting into trouble and a daughter feels misunderstood.
In the Jewish household, with Lainie Kazan as the mother and Maury Chaykin as the father, the problem is coming to grips with the fact that their daughter Rachel (Kyra Sedgwick) is a lesbian and is bringing her companion Carla (Julianna Margulies) home for the holiday. The parents are trying to play it cool, but there are also the bewildered relatives.
Audrey Williams, battling between trying to stay calm and being ready to explode, has her family's Thanksgiving dinner complicated by a pain of a mother-in-law who hovers over her and is critical about nearly everything. Audrey, who is depicted with great skill and nuance by accomplished actress Alfre Woodard, is having problems with her husband Ronald, smoothly played by Dennis Haysbert, who works as an aide to a governor accused of being a racist. The Williams's son is a militant activist on the outs with his father, whom he views as betraying African-Americans by being in the scorned governor's camp. Tensions run deep, with more to come.
These brief plot notes are only an introduction; developments in each household are much more complex. As well as being a moving human chronicle, the film has hearty helpings of humor, and Chadha goes to town laying out the kinds of dinners served by each family, according to cultural and culinary traditions. Lots of fresh food was used in the filming, and there is fun in watching the preparations. The director of photography is Jong Lin, who shot the tantalizing food arrangements in the "East Drink Man Woman."
The action gets a bit melodramatic near the climax, but the director ties up the ends neatly and leaves us with a feeling that there's so much to know about our neighbors, wherever they may be. "What's Cooking?" is a delightful film with an overview that intelligently looks at some of the mix in contemporary America and combines inquisitiveness with compassion, and the fine cast would do honor at any dinner table. A Trimark Pictures release.
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