‘La Cocina’ review: The restaurant drama is one of the freshest of the year

Opening with a quote from Henry David Thoreau’s 1863 essay “Life Without Principle”, including the lines “Let us consider how we spend our lives / This world is a place of business / What infinite bustle”, film “La Cocina” . ” aims to fully examine these concepts and how work can take over one’s life and crowd out too many other concerns.

Directed by the Mexican director Alonso Ruizpalacioswhich adapted Arnold Wesker’s 1957 stage play “The Kitchen,” the film is a burst of furious energy that knows when to let up, with a few moments of gentle lyricism as punctuation. This is Ruizpalacios’ fourth feature in about a decade, and it feels like a big step forward, a shift from being an up-and-coming talent to someone truly coming into his own as a storyteller. Even if what’s depicted on screen spins out of control, there’s a sense of security in the filmmaking that makes it one of the freshest films of the year.

“La Cocina” is set in a large Manhattan restaurant known as the Grill, which is pumping out food to tourists at an alarming rate. The story begins with young Estela (Anna Díaz) making her way through the side door sometime before it opens to easily cheat her way into a position as a chef’s helper. From there things just keep happening, as one event unfolds into another in a non-stop rush amid the incessant clatter of plates and pans and the machine spitting out endless order tickets.

Anna Díaz and Raúl Briones in the movie “La Cocina”.

(Willa)

The action soon turns to Pedro (an outstanding Raúl Briones), a burned-out chef who hails from the same small Mexican town as Estela and is the charismatic and chaotic center of the kitchen. He had a not-so-secret affair with one of the waitresses, Julia (Rooney Mara), who became pregnant and has an abortion appointment later in the day between shifts.

Employees represent a mini-UN, with some workers referring to each other by their nation of origin as nicknames. (A new waitress repeatedly corrects people that she’s Dominican, not Mexican.) Their lives outside the restaurant are of little consequence, with a break in the back alley the only moment for meaningful connection.

There remains a strict sense of territory and hierarchy, as the waitresses go about their business and the chefs do theirs, all with anxious intensity. The owner often waits for an unfulfilled promise to help his undocumented employees get their papers as a way to keep them working. Management is anxious to recover the $800 that went missing from the night before, with staff being interviewed to see if anyone stole it.

Far from a well-oiled machine, the kitchen is a dysfunctional zone full of petty squabbles and petty feuds; it feels like a minor miracle that anything is served to anyone. A broken soda machine creates an almost apocalyptic flood. Eventually, the discord in the kitchen spills over into the dining room, and that’s when everyone knows things have gone too far.

It says something about her talents that although Julia forms the emotional core of the story, Mara does not stand out as hollywood stationr among the rest of the distribution. With her wispy, faded hair and tired demeanor, she’s a perfect fit, while her antics, like a trick with a lighter or burping after downing the beer too fast, are adorable and cute, but also mask something troubled and which struggles below.

Rooney Mara in the movie “La Cocina”.

(Willa)

Working with cinematographer Juan Pablo Ramírez and editor Yibrán Asuad—and shooting in black and white with significant splashes of color—Ruizpalacios creates a visual style that keeps reinventing itself until the end, creating an unpredictable feel that matches the volatile plot. .

Comparisons to the hit television series “The Bear,” also about the behind-the-scenes events of a restaurant, will be inevitable. But “La Cocina” has essentially no interest in the food itself—the only thing lovingly filmed is a simple sandwich—because Ruizpalacios focuses tightly on the endless hustle and bustle of the work itself and the people just trying to make it. at the end of it. day so he can come back and do it again.