Aragoste a Manhattan

If you saw "Boiling Point" (2021) then you'll get the gist of this drama set in an hectic New York restaurant kitchen. "The Grill" might look peaceful to the customers, but it's kitchen is a multi-cultural, multi-lingual and attitudinal melting pot of cooks, waitresses and cleaners under the guidance of a no-nonsense chef (Lee Sellars) and a slimy manager "Luis" (Eduardo Olmos). It's this latter man who finds there's a problem one morning when his boss reports that $800-odd is missing from one of the cash registers and the owner "Rashid" (Oded Fehr) is seeing red. Using the investigation as a pretext, we quickly discover that this room is full of characters who generally rub along ok with each other, except for "Pedro" (Raul Briones) and "Max" (Spenser Granese), with the latter man frequently and violently fed up with the lack of English being spoken in this kitchen of Babel. Meantime, "Pedro" is trying to rekindle his relationship with waitress "Julia" (Rooney Mara) who is expecting, but not intending to have, his baby. With everyone working flat out, the search for the missing cash and the prevailing, accumulating, sense of toxicity amidst this atmosphere, the scene is set for quite a lively look at the trade, it's traditions and the vulnerability of so many workers with a dubious legal status who are treated little better than slaves. Sadly, though, for me the film just didn't take off. Aside from the fact that there is simply far too much dialogue, it is much too long and the characterisations are way too shallow and under-developed. The acting isn't especially engaging, and the writing doesn't do enough to create anyone here that is liable enough to feel the remotest sympathy for. There are too many repetitious angry confrontations without enough humour to entertain or sustain much interest and as they quite literally wade through the story, it just runs out of steam before bordering on the farcical at the end. It's disappointing, sorry.

La Cocina (2024) is a black-and-white, thriller-adjacent drama set in the kitchen of a New York restaurant on a particularly stressful day in which the lunch rush is amplified by an investigation into a missing $800 dollars suspected to have been stolen from the tills the night before. Although it bounces around between the various members of staff, initially beginning with a fresh-faced immigrant fumbling her way around the city in an effort to locate a man she knew as a child and ask him for a job, it soon more-or-less lands on Pedro, a three-year kitchen veteran with clear anger management issues and a desire to work long enough to get his Green Card, and Julia, a no-nonsense waitress with anxiety issues and an urgent desire to get an abortion. The feature essentially depicts a difficult day in the life of its characters as they navigate their work and their personal lives while trying not to slip up and sacrifice their chance at the coveted American dream. Thematically, it's all about the immigrant experience and the way in which America views non-citizens as a means to an end, dangling the carrot of citizenship and acceptance as a way to encourage work within the capitalist nightmare that robs almost everyone of their individuality. While this is an interesting angle to explore and the affair occasionally does so with poignance, the overall experience struggles to marry its subtext with its setting and often feels as though it's trying to say so much that it ends up not really saying anything in particular. Having said that, it's still a well-written and keenly observed slice of fiction that feels naturalistic in its every aspect. It does sort of lose its way as it heads into its increasingly erratic and stereotypically explosive finale, but its earlier moments of comparative subtlety work really well and there are some sequences that are almost transcendent in their high-intensity urgency. A ten-minute apparent oner (which is actually at least two shots stitched together) is incredibly impressive, an immersive and suspenseful real-time presentation of an exceptionally stressful lunch rush that genuinely puts you on the edge of your seat. Elsewhere, the filmmaking is confident and considered, with often beautiful framing and an ability to make the mundane both strikingly cinematic and remarkably real all at the same time. The performances are grounded and nuanced, making each and every character feel as true-to-life as possible and enhancing the impact of even the story's most tangential moments so that everything feels as though it matters even if some of it technically doesn't. The cinematography is often striking, the writing is often poetic, and the production design is consistently delightfully unobtrusive. The piece has a fly-on-the-wall feel, a naturalistic aesthetic that enhances the impact of its purposefully messy and - I suppose - unfulfilling plotting. It looks really unique, a whole world unto itself, and its artistic elements are as necessary as its narrative ones. It's a really cohesive picture and it often works brilliantly. What holds me back from liking it more is the fact that it gets a bit too loose in the second half of its second act, before it becomes a bit too conventionally 'big' in its final third and then stops just shy of doing something truly out there that it might as well have done fully considering how heavily it alludes to it. It also doesn't compound its themes quite as well as it could have. Still, this is a really solid effort that doesn't quite feel like anything else I've seen so far this year. It's really good.

Transposed from 1950s London to a contemporary midtown NYC diner, Arnold Wesker's play 'The Kitchen' shows its subject matter still possesses vitality and relevance despite the passing of almost seventy years. Major plot points have been altered but the general theme remains the same as overworked restaurant staff go through their daily grind to put food on the table for demanding customers.

At the outset of 'La Cocina' $800 has gone missing from the till, resulting in an internal investigation which causes additional stress for employees. Meanwhile one of the cooks Pedro attempts to persuade his waitress lover not to abort their child. Many of the workers are immigrants, and the atmosphere is raucous, profane, coarse and combative. The B&W cinematography, flamboyant direction and astonishing acting capture these elements in a fantastic display of film-making pyrotechnics that leave one open-mouthed in admiration.

The screenplay's self-indulgent 140 minute length turns out to be the project's weak link. Several scenes go on too long - an interlude between the lunch and dinner service drags somewhat - and although Raul Briones' delivers a breathtaking performance, Pedro's histrionics become tiresome some time before the end. It's a pity, because there's so much to admire here.

A black and white comical tragedy or tragical comedy about various people who are attracted, like moths to a flame, to working in the kitchen of a famous restaurant on Times Square in New York. The working conditions are disgusting, the bosses are manipulative and threatening, most of the kitchen staff are illegal immigrants from places where life standard is considered to be worse than in US. But what can be worse? They are working under contant pressure, almost always tense and stressed, always yelled at, humiliated and even accused of crimes they didn't commit. The central characters, a local waitress and a Mexican chef, are more disturbed than the others; and they start sort of a love story and hell knows where it will end.

There's also humor, a lot of noise, sporadic fits of violence, a dream sharing session, some flirting with consequences, multiple languages (and multiple misunderstandings), food and drinks galore, a very tight schedule, obscene jokes and a ray of hope in everyone.

The international cast is great, the music is superb, the acting and photography are wonderful. The main theme, in my opinion, is how overrated the Times Square place is - the Cocina people go through so much suffering and maltreatment there, and they only got there in hope for a better life, the American dream. But is this the better life? True, it's not the lowest bottom level and most of them seem to get by but they, as everyone else, definitely deserve more than this overrated Times Square place has to offer.

This is the first film by this incredible director that I've watched, and in the last 20 minutes of the movie, I found myself unable to stop the tears from flowing. As I sat in the cinema seat, I felt every emotion he was conveying. It was truly a masterpiece.

Two days later, I find myself still thinking about the movie. I might even dare to say that it has touched something deep within me, something that had been quietly waiting for me to discover. I look forward to exploring more of Alonso's films soon, and I truly believe I will enjoy them as well.

I Can only say that I highly recommend this movie to anyone seeking a genuine glimpse into the real world.