Hey Favreau, I bet it’s good to be cooking for yourself again, huh?
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“Chef” is a movie about a man falling in love with his passion for cooking and at the same time learning what it means to be a good father as well. It’s directed by and stars Jon Favreau, who after directing Elf, went on to become the guy behind the first two Iron Man Movies, and you get the sense that he is telling his own story here through the metaphor of this master chef. It certainly puts the meta in metaphor but I think it works wonderfully. I’ll just say it right off the bat, I loved this story.
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First off, it’s just great to see a movie that really says something. This movie drips with the passion of it’s director and you can just see him having fun just telling the story. There are wonderful messages all around here, from the power and personal nature of creativity, to the pain of criticism, to the way we subtly let valuable things interfere with prioritizing even more valuable things. As the father of four boys, some of the stuff about the way our kids need us and the ways we interact with them hit home on a very deep personal level. But, make no mistake, Favreau is telling a story about creative passion here, and you can tell he feels it deeply and he’s doing it very well. Some of the story work in this is beautiful, subtly setting us up for one thing but giving us another, and somehow making us glad he did. Much of this is due to his performance, and the others around him, Dustin Hoffman, Robert Downey Jr., and John Leguizamo just to name a few. Plus the movie is really funny and has a really clever and fun way of integrating social media into the mix. Put it all together and the recipe makes for a pretty great dish.
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If there was one thing that I would mark as the negative in this it would be the length. There were moments I felt like too long to get to where we needed to go. I didn’t see it so much as an editing flaw as is usually the case. But it just felt like the script itself could have used a little bit of paring down. But honestly, I was so engaged in this simple story that it really didn’t matter all that much, and truthfully Favreau is cooking his own meal here and sometimes letting the plot soak in that story brine just a little longer can add more flavor to the overall meal.
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When it’s all said and done, “Chef” should be seen as a personal triumph for Jon Favreau. It’s a skillfully told story with a delightful sense of humor, and some powerful messages, but the real flavor here is that Favreau is telling his own story. Movies are his menu and in making this dish he is embodying the very soul of the Chef he played. Even if the movie might have been a little bit shorter, it’s hard to argue with the end result that sits on the plate. This critic gives the meal an A-.
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Thanks for checking out this Your Movie Friend review, stay tuned for this review’s “Best Ever” challenge here in bit but first, I’m going to put up some stuff you can click over in this area. If you’d like to subscribe, which I would much appreciate, you can do so by clicking the big gray subscribe button. Want to see more? Also out this week were the Tom Cruise flick “Edge of Tomorrow” and the best selling novel adaptation, “The Fault In Our Stars”. You can also Click the logo up here to go to the all new yourmoviefriend.com where you can find a searchable database of reviews as well as the written text of these videos. And finally this review’s “Best Ever” Challenge, where you name the best movie ever in a particular category and also try to identify my choice. What is the “the best Jon Favreau movie ever”. Actor, director, doesn’t matter to me. Mine’s easy, and sometimes seen as the genesis of the modern comic book film. Drop your own answer and a guess at mine in the comments and first person to guess mine gets a point! Thanks and please subscribe!