Chef

'CHEF' is directed by and stars Jon Favreau, and was released on the 30th May 2014. Guest Stars include John Leguizamo, Sofia Vergara, Dustin Hoffman, Scarlett Johansson & Robert Downey Jr.

The film tells the story of Carl Casper (played by Jon Favreau), a chef working in Los Angeles who's food critics once raved about. However, he is suffering creative differences with the owner of the restaurant that he works at (Dustin Hoffman), who wants to continue selling the same food they have always sold, while Casper wants to innovate with new and fresh ideas. Everything comes to a head when a big critic is coming to review the restaurant, which eventually leads to Carl suffering a breakdown in front of him.

Social Media is a big catalyst for this, and the way the Chef utilises it is very clever and inventive, perfectly mirroring how these things work today, the film having only come out last year. Twitter is the main form shown, and its nuances as a service are shown perfectly by the not exactly technically-minded Carl, who mistakes a tweet to the world as a private message, leading to the events mentioned above. His millennial son Percy is the polar opposite to this, who of course knows exactly how all of this stuff works and is therefore able to use it to his fathers advantage when trying to attract customers when they travel the country in the second half of the film.

When a character sends a tweet, there is a clever visual representation too. The words appear next to the character as they are typing them, in a style akin to that of BBC's Sherlock, and when it is sent, a small bird flutters from it and off the screen, which is a great way to show how something 'flies' from your phone on to the world wide web.

The musical score in Chef is outstanding. It is comprised of a wide variety of Latin American songs and other music, which fits the feel-good tone of the film perfectly. It is all up-beat and dance-worthy, with even the more sombre parts of the film (not that there are many) accompanied with a more positive tune so the audience don't get too sad. It really is one of the best parts of the film.

Another highlight is the extensive guest cast. John Leguizamo puts in a great performance as Carl's sous chef Martin, as does Sofia Vergara, who plays his ex-wife Inez. As they are both Latin actors themselves, they only strengthen the film's ties to South America. Back at the restaurant, Dustin Hoffman's is instantly unlikeable as stick in the mud 'Riva', and Scarlett Johansson's waitress Molly provides some great comedic scenes with Favreau, as well as some more heartfelt ones. Finally Robert Downey Jr. himself plays Chef Casper's ex-wife's ex-husband Marvin. As usual, he plays a heightened version of himself, but this time he is more unlikeable while still entertaining, clearly thinking he is better than Carl every minute he is one screen with him. 

In fact, my only negative with Chef is this: I think it should be 20 minutes longer. While it is a relatively low budget film, which may have affected its length, I feel that the end was too contrived, so that once the road trip ended, the whole film decided to as well. This wouldn't be a problem, except that Favreau still needed to wrap up the story at this point, leading to a final scene that squashes too many events into one.

Despite this minor drawback, 'Chef' is still one of my favourite films of all time, and I am sad that so few people know of it's existence. It just makes you feel happy, a theme that itself is present in the story, and every role is masterfully acted. While it could be a little longer, what is here is a Latin Masterpiece.