Chef - La ricetta perfetta

Jon Favreau's pet project, after a decade of big budget, heavy-on-special-effects, blockbusters and fantasy fair, is as charming as they come. The film follows a master chef (played by Favreau) whose career is derailed and, as a last resort, opens a food truck and drives across country with his young son and his sous-chef, played by John Leguizamo, selling Cubano sandwiches. Along the way, we're treated to food-porn at its best and introduced to a cast of characters that would make Woody Allen blush: Oliver Platt, Dustin Hoffman, Sofia Vergara, Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansen, and a slew of other familiar faces.

This is still a far cry from 'Swingers' - the film that began the plague that is Vince Vaughn and managed to charm every straight man in America - but the man knows how to make a light comedy with clever dialogue that doesn't feel frivolous. This is far from indie/art-house but Favreau was candid in saying that he had no desire to make a cinematic contribution, he simply fell in love with the premise, ran with it, and the result brought the house down.

I can't help feeling that this movie is not only about a chef finding himself, but it's also about lead actor/director Jon Favreau trying to get back in touch with the kind of films he used to make -- small ones without guys wearing super-suits or cowboys drawing down on aliens. Here, Favreau's Carl Casper quits his big Iron Restaurant job and rediscovers himself, and his passion for food and family, by running a Chef-sized food truck. Results: excellent.

Films like this can be lost if the wrong kid is cast. Emjay Anthony is the right kid. He's great as Percy. I particularly enjoyed the way the film handled Percy's internet-savviness, and how he used it. John Leguizamo is a great fit as Carl's friend and sous-chef. Sofia Vergara as Carl's ex- wife is, as usual, capable and stunning.

See Chef, and bear witness as a good filmmaker continues his journey to becoming a great one.

At an early point in Chef, the title character cooks a grilled cheese sandwich for his 10-year-old son, Percy. It's a familiar recipe —bread, butter, and cheese — but the way that the camera lingers on the melting cheese, and the care taken in how the food was served, made me want to reach into the screen and take a bite. If Chef were a meal, it would be comfort food. When comfort food is done right, boy oh boy does it hit the spot.

Favreau directs and stars as Carl Casper, a celebrated chef at a swanky Los Angeles restaurant, whose creativity and integrity is compromised by the restaurant's controlling owner. After a video of him losing his temper at a food critic goes viral he becomes not only unemployed, but unemployable. With his reputation in shreds, he decides to get back in touch with his roots by opening a food truck and taking it – along with line cook and son - on the road, rediscovering his passion along the way.

The pairing of sumptuous shots of food preparation with Latin beats is hard to resist for most audiences, and the food shots in Chef are so luscious and evocative that you can almost smell what's cooking. The music, sensual and spicy, is perfectly matched to the food. There's a beauty and a rhythm in the food preparation scenes and the amount of them included in the film is just right, so as not to feel over indulgent.

There is also a lot of enjoyment to be had from watching the performances of the supporting cast, and perhaps this is because each of them play to their strengths: Robert Downey Jr steals the scene as Casper's ex-wife's other ex-husband who is rich, generous, and always looks like he's on the verge of doing something really crazy; Sofia Vegara plays Casper's sweet, sexy, well- meaning ex-wife, who he is still great friends with; John Leguizamo, always an interesting actor to watch, has fantastic chemistry with Favreau and the young actor who plays his son, and some of the more meandering scenes in the film are made interesting by his infectious energy; and Dustin Hoffman adds an element of compassion to a role that could have easily been reduced to a caricature. The stars featuring in the film stay firmly within their safe zone, and I couldn't help but remember what Hoffman tells Favreau early in the movie: play your hits, because no one wants to go to a Rolling Stones concert and not hear 'Satisfaction'. While this can have the potential to be boring, it bodes well for the film: we know we're in safe hands, and we're going to come out of this feeling satisfied. Special mention must be made of Emjay Anthony, who plays Favreau's son Percy with the perfect blend of maturity and innocence, and is really the emotional centre of the film.

While the film is certainly a feast for the senses, at its core it's about restoration: restoring the father-son relationship, and restoring passion. It's hard to ignore the parallels to Favreau's own career: after breaking out in the 1996 indie hit Swingers, Favreau has in recent years become a director of the mega-blockbusters: the first two Iron Man movies, and the less well-received Cowboys & Aliens. Here, he cleanses his palate as a director and returns to more down-to-earth, feel-good fare (there's even a dead-on remark about Casper's/Favreau's "dramatic weight gain". Ouch). A familiar recipe made with great ingredients, Chef will leave you feeling satisfied.

Stepping away from the blockbusters that have occupied his time and talents of late, Jon Favreau scales back the spectacle to deliver Chef, a thoroughly enjoyable story of redemption set amid the chaos and camaraderie of the kitchen in which Favreau delivers what may be his best performance yet. In addition to taking on the lead role of disgruntled chef Carl Casper, Favreau also wrote the screenplay and served as producer and director, putting himself firmly in the firing line if the film misfired. Fortunately, he has got most of it right and Chef overcomes any shortcomings through its refreshing take on relationships - particularly between Carl and his 10-year-old son Percy (Emjay Anthony) - and the power of technology and social media as both a destructive force and an instrument of considerable social currency. Confined to bit parts of late in the likes of The Wolf of Wall Street and the three Iron Man films, Favreau seems to relish the opportunity to take on this role of a man forced to re-evaluate everything that is important to him.

We first meet Carl as he begins preparations for the evening ahead at the restaurant at which he is the head chef. Once hailed as the next big thing in culinary circles, Carl's career and reputation has stagnated somewhat as he finds himself frustrated by the limitations placed on him by restaurant owner Riva (Dustin Hoffman). You see, Riva is more interested in maximising profit, while Carl is desperate to shake things up and broaden the menu, particularly with high profile critic Ramsey Michel (Oliver Platt) dropping in to sample the fare. It is not giving too much away to say that things don't go well and, when Carl unleashes at Michel in a tirade that goes viral, his tenure at the restaurant is over. At the urging of his ex-wife Inez (Sofia Vergara), Carl heads to Miami and establishes a food truck that enables him to reconnect with his love of cooking and the son he has neglected. Much merriment ensues as Carl hits the road to redemption with Percy and best friend Martin (John Leguizamo) along for the ride.

The film very much celebrates the art of cooking and gastronomes will go nuts at the myriad montages of Carl at work in the kitchen, whether it be in the restaurant, the food truck or at home where even a toasted sandwich is prepared with passion and precision. The relationship between Carl and Percy, which is the crux of the narrative with the food truck as the conduit that brings them together, is refreshingly realistic and devoid of mawkish sentimentality. Young Graham is remarkably composed and naturalistic as Percy and the underrated Leguizamo makes the most of his best role in ages. The music is fabulously funky, creating the up-tempo mood that permeates the second half of the film. There really is a lot to like here, which makes it easy enough to overlook those aspects that go unexplained. For example, Inez lives in a luxurious house with an armada of domestic staff and is always making reference to her work, yet we never get any sense of what this work entails and ultimately Vergara seems to be simply rehashing her Modern Family persona, albeit not quite so shrill.

The sudden disappearance of Scarlett Johansson from the narrative is another mystery that remains unsolved. In the opening portion of the film, Johansson's Molly works as a hostess at the restaurant and there is clearly a mutual attraction between her and Carl. In fact, a scene in which Molly lounges seductively while Carl prepares a meal is sexier than most love scenes, yet once Carl leaves for Miami, Molly is neither seen nor heard from again. A cynic might suggest that Johansson's inclusion, along with a somewhat strange cameo from Robert Downey Jnr as another of Inez's ex-husbands, is simply Favreau calling upon his Iron Man co-stars in an attempt to secure maximum leverage for his film with multiplex audiences.

The film demonstrates the power of ubiquitous presence and power of social media; initially bringing Carl to his knees before ultimately playing a very significant role in his resurrection as a chef and a father. Despite a few unanswered questions along the way, Chef is a charming, refreshing surprise.

I really enjoyed this funny and heart-warming movie about a chef and his relationship with food and his son. The film is worth about 8.5 in my books. The current IMDb score is roughly accurate, despite the inexplicably negative reviews and voting of a tiny minority.

Leguizamo and Vergara light up every scene they're in. Quite a few A-list Hollywood stars are in this movie, but it's not a Hollywood movie at all. The performances by all the main and supporting actors were excellent. When I try to single one or two out, I just start thinking about how good the others were too.

You feel like the movie had no script at all, that's how natural the writing was. Remarkably cliché-free.

I was subtly but deftly moved at the end. This is an optimistic guy movie but women will enjoy it as well.

Kudos to Favreau (of course) and to everyone else involved in this film. I have a new respect for Favreau and will watch out for his films in the future.