Who would have guessed that the best scene of Jon Favreau's career — which includes such visually striking and hugely entertaining spectacles as "Cowboys & Aliens," "Iron Man," "Zathura," and "Elf" — would be that of a chef cooking a grilled cheese sandwich for his son?
It is in this quiet moment that "Chef" emerges as a great food movie — one with acute understanding that passionate chefs put as much pride and care into simple dishes at home for family as entrees in a gourmet restaurant. My dad was that kind of cook, fixing even a PB&J with meticulous attention, proving that love can make the simplest snack special.
"Chef" moves similarly from meticulous details to broad notions. As the protagonist steps out from under the dim lights of a gourmet restaurant and into a sun-kissed food truck, he seems to embody the contemporary food movement.
Writer-director Favreau stars as Carl Casper, a seasoned chef aching to regain his artistic side under the oppressive reign of a restaurant owner named Riva (played wonderfully by Dustin Hoffman in the film's tensest scenes). When he can no longer take the heat brought on by Riva and a snarky Los Angeles food critic (Oliver Platt), Carl storms out of his kitchen and throws a fit among diners in his restaurant, which is caught on video, turning him into a YouTube sensation.
After much convincing from his wife (Sofía Vergara), Carl finds himself renovating a food truck and driving it across the country with his son (EmJay Anthony) and fellow restaurant veteran (John Leguizamo). Favreau makes a clever stylistic shift here, obscuring the truck's food (unlike the early restaurant scenes which highlight each dish's ornate details) and thus underscoring the people behind the food as the more important focus. This embodies a trend at the moment — our culture's recent gravitation toward food not merely as a product but as a means of connecting with people. Just look at all the viewers tuning in to "Top Chef" and "Kitchen Nightmares" out of hunger for human drama.
"Chef" not only taps into the zeitgeist with its exploration of the contemporary food movement; it also proves to be a tender and timeless tale of fathers and sons and those formative childhood moments spent leaning over a stove as your parents prepare meals — watching, learning, bonding, discovering that secret ingredient of love that makes meals and just about everything else in life better.
"Chef" is easily Favreau's most emotionally engaging and acutely observed film as well as one of the most crowd-pleasing, populist movies of this summer. But above all, it touched me as a warm reminder of my dad and a remarkably accurate depiction of the restaurant industry and passionate foodies with which he worked. Like his friends and colleagues, he loved cooking and the joy food could bring to people. Before he passed, he talked about opening a Mexican food truck like Favreau's character in "Chef." He would have loved this film. It understands the passion of foodies like him and follows a character doing exactly what my dad did as a chef and father — making joy for others.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgFws3AoIUY&w=500&h=315]