Toast

The film, Toast, is based upon the autobiographical book, Toast: The Story of a Boy's Hunger, written by English food writer, journalist and broadcaster, Nigel Slater. It is a memoir of Slater's early years and his memories of his mother who died when he was just 9 years old.

The book/film is entitled Toast as that was the ONE food his mother was able to successfully cook ... and he tells us that a person will always love the one who prepared slices of the warm, crunchy, buttery goodness to you as a child. The young Nigel must've held true to this mantra even in childhood, as he never accepted or trusted his father's new "cleaning lady", Mrs. Potter (Helena Bonham Carter - Sweeney Todd, The King's Speech, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), who won her way into his father's heart with her culinary expertise ... much to Nigel's chagrin.

As Nigel was already interested in food (he'd drool over the exotic cheeses at his local grocer or sneak a flashlight into his bed to look at the mouth-watering pictures in the family cookbooks), he eventually becomes highly competitive with Mrs. Potter in hopes of winning-over his always-distant father.

Toast takes place over a span of ten years and so Nigel is played by two different actors. Young Nigel is played by a remarkable Oscar Kennedy who is making his feature film debut (!!!) while the older, teenage Nigel is played by Freddie Highmore (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Finding Neverland, The Spiderwick Chronicles). Highmore is a great, young actor; but it is surprising to admit that the younger, less-experienced Kennedy outshines him in this film as Kennedy's Nigel does more of the grieving and Highmore is scripted to do more of the pouting.

Toast isn't as boring as the title makes it sound; nor is it overly compelling as it turns into a most-conventional, lite-biopic. Bonham Carter is always good and her scheming, competitively outrageous behavior here is the butter on this piece of toast. The film is about Nigel Slater (kind of a blank page as he gets older) but he wouldn't have become who he is without the provocation of this film's Kitchen Queen, Mrs. Potter ... nor would the film be what it is without Bonham Carter.

The film is quite good. However, if Nigel is this big of a c*** in real life, I wish him nothing but the most tortuous suffering he deserves. Horrible human.

I saw this movie without knowing who Nigel Slater is. The trailer made it out to be a humorous coming-of-age story about a boy with a passion for cooking.

The young Nigel never gives Mrs. Potter a chance - because she works as a house cleaner, is a bit vulgar and lives in public housing, he looks down on her and puts her down in front of his father whenever he can. He wins sympathy points for the emotionally abusive father and the dying mother, but ultimately he himself is not a likable character. And that is the main drawback of the movie. It seems to have been created mainly to vilify the stepmother that Nigel never liked.

Otherwise there is nothing wrong with it. In fact I think Helena Bonham-Carter delivers a great performance as Mrs. Potter.

A very fine little movie. And a good exhibition for the actors, who have plenty to work with here. Helena Bonham Carter has a lot of fun and she is cast perfectly. The young actor is really good too. And while I am not always fond of the "based on ...", this feels rather like a movie then say a biopic.

It is light and has a lot of comedy to it, so it is not heavy drama. On the other hand, I don't think it is good for any recipes. I certainly don't remember anything much from that part of the movie. But you know it is called Toast for a reason, of course. A very nice and decent little movie, that is worth your time :o)

The casting choices were very good in my opinion; very individual characters who you really feel as if you get to know. Freddie Highmore came in too late unfortunately. The sudden switch lost my sense of attachment to Nigel, and it was too near to the end to have it rebuild. I loved Oscar Kennedy. I thought he was amazing.

The ending was such a letdown, I was still waiting for the 'real ending' when it happened. Nigel's sexuality wasn't really emphasized, nor was it not mentioned. It was just 'there'. It wasn't played into the plot line or Nigel's character development. Probably the most anticlimactic bit after the ending.

Good. But could have been a lot better.