{"id":202,"date":"2025-07-18T00:46:57","date_gmt":"2025-07-18T04:46:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gregneeld.com\/?p=202"},"modified":"2025-11-07T17:44:58","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T22:44:58","slug":"chef-jon-favreau-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregneeld.com\/?p=202","title":{"rendered":"CHEF (Jon Favreau, 2014)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Jon Favreau seems like a straight-up guy, likable even. I noticed him early on in his career but never really thought much about him until the \u2018Iron Man<\/em>\u2018 franchise. He directed the first two, both of them insanely profitable and hugely satisfying, and co-starred to good effect in the third. He reminds me a little of Josh Whedon, but less of a wunderkind and more like an approachable guy my age from New York. Due to my liking of Mr. Favreau, I wanted \u2018Chef\u2019<\/a> to be really good, again reminding me of Josh Whedon and his in-betweener project \u2018Much Ado about Nothing<\/em>.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Short review: I left the theater happy, giving ol\u2019 Jon more respect than I had going in, and on four fronts: acting, writing, directing, and casting (as I assume he was deeply involved).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Chef-2014-Movie-Poster1-750x400\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Interminable review: Mr. Favreau has grown quite a bit since making \u2018Swingers<\/em>\u2018 both in his outlook (as reflected in the script) and skill set. This is the tale of a hard-working and conscientious chef who, like any artist, is torn between the passion of free expression and the desire to pay the rent. If you like films about food, say Stanley Tucci\u2019s \u2018Big Night<\/a>\u2018 or the documentary \u2018Jiro Dreams of Sushi,<\/a>\u2018 then the edible masterpieces in this drama should make you happy. A wide variety of meals are shown and discussed and lovingly lingered over, but it\u2019s the Cuban cuisine of Miami that steals the stage (although New Orleans makes a good showing and places a strong second).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The movie also explores that whole predictable \u2018Cat\u2019s in the Cradle\u2019 theme, the too-busy dad, separated from his wife and not there nearly enough for his son. Usually treacly treadings like this give me the dry heaves, and it is to the writer\u2019s credit that much of the dialogue here reflects a deeper and more thoughtful point of view. Against all odds, this film breathes life into these tired tropes. The scene where Favreau reacts to his son trying to sell a burnt sandwich stands out to me in particular. In the hands of a hundred hacks, this almost always becomes an excuse for verbose grandstanding and drama! drama! drama! Here we hear sentiment from the heart, a serious kindness that won me over in a beautifully underplayed way, and see an example of good parenting. How often does that happen?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lest you think I view this film as a one-man effort, let me praise the casting! With only Scarlett Johansson\u2019s role being too thin (although, as always, she is smokin\u2019) and Robert Downey\u2019s cameo being too short, many of the remaining cast are perfectly placed:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

>Dustin Hoffman as the crusty restaurant owner is so believably curmudgeonly, so much the character you see and hear in front of you, that I\u2019d nominate him for a supporting actor award. I\u2019ve seen a large number of Mr. Hoffman\u2019s films and I honestly can\u2019t remember him better directed in a non-leading role. His performance was something of a revelation to me and I\u2019m glad to be taking him seriously again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

>Sofia Vergara\u2019s role is only slightly meatier than Scarlett J.\u2019s but it has a lot of heart, all wrapped up with picture-perfect styling and a light touch of humor. And that ass! Favreau\u2019s direction is so strong I could almost<\/em> believe he and she had been a couple. The fact that she had originally married for money makes her real, the fact that she chose her next husband for his integrity makes her likable. I may have liked her a little better in \u2018Machete Kills<\/em>\u2018 with her machine gun breast cups, but that\u2019s just me. Your mileage may vary. As a side note, I\u2019d like to see her given a chance to flex her acting muscles a little more (I believe she\u2019s got \u2019em), although, what with being the highest-paid actress in TV for doing exactly<\/em> what she\u2019s doing, it may be a while.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

>John Leguizamo displays none of that annoying side he\u2019s sometime known for (like a smoother, Latin Gilbert Gottfried) and is here paired with Favreau in a way that works well. Both have cheerful baselines and display constant enthusiasm for their work and each other. Not my first choice for the role, but a much better performance than I\u2019d hoped for. Again, like Miss Vergara, the strength of his performance is his light touch and the director\u2019s skill in displaying it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

>What can I say about Oliver Platt? I love the man\u2019s acting and the fact that he is now in two<\/strong> of my favorite food films (\u2018Big Night<\/em>\u2018 being the other) delights me. Here he is a character (spoiler alert: he\u2019s the food critic) with some interesting and quickly sketched traits: unkempt but focused, solitary but completely at ease socially, an honest fan of the craft but a grandstanding hater online. The simple role he\u2019s given is given a whole spectrum of shadings by his effort, much of it non-verbal. His re-appearance at the end of the film would have seemed deus ex machina in many another flick, but here it resonates with the simple reality Favreau tries to capture: real characters crossing paths in a life-like way, not forced into position by the constraints of the script. It might help that Mr. Platt\u2019s brother Adam is a food critic for New York magazine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

>and, in what must be the best cameo since Vincent Cassel walked in and stole the show from Michael Fassbender and Viggo Mortensen in David Cronenberg\u2019s \u2018a Dangerous Method<\/em>\u2018, the incomparable Amy Sedaris as the frighteningly over-tanned publicist, whose advice is both perceptive and oblivious, takes a walk-on role and blows it up larger than life. She has a way of bringing out an ingrained shallowness in her characters that often makes it seem like the role was written for her. This was definitely one of those times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"chef-movie-640x343\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Technically, the film is solid and workmanlike but nothing special. You can tell Favreau\u2019s intention is to tell the story simply and honestly, no special effects, no fancy lighting or camerawork. And that\u2019s a shame. The film could\u2019ve used some jazzing up, especially as it runs a little long, clocking in at just under two hours. There was one solitary bit of beautiful camera movement towards the end of the film when the group enters a restaurant and the camera comes swooping in from behind, but my enjoyment was abruptly cut off by a bad edit and what seemed to be the tail end of the camera\u2019s arc from the next shot. After that tiny shock, I thought how the film could\u2019ve benefited from a more strokes of imagination. This is a criticism I had with another actor-directed film, Joseph Gordon-Levitt\u2019s \u2018Don Jon<\/em>\u2018, which had a certain amount of excitement in the first half-hour with its Terry Gilliam-like flashes of fantasy. It also starred Scarlett Johannson. She was pretty smokin\u2019 in that one, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also slightly dusty and pedestrian was the whole \u201clet\u2019s go to this next city and try not to act like a film crew on location\u201d strain, particularly in New Orleans, where the story flabbed out a little and got kinda vacation footage-y (the Texas scenes were firmly in-between). The personal bonding and chemistry displayed between Favreau and the kid who plays his kid (Emjay Anthony) was mostly absent from this section. The whole going to Caf\u00e9 du Monde<\/a> in search of the perfect beignets could have been magical, as befits the town and its cuisine. It should have felt more like a trip to a holy place and not a pitstop from a director trying to kick NOLA some cash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are two bands featured during the course of the film: Gary Clark, Jr. in Austin and a Cuban band in Miami. Both performances are, like most band inclusions in movies, shoehorned into the narrative in a somewhat forced and uncomfortable manner, although it\u2019s only the reaction shots of the cast to the Latin band that are disposable and not the band\u2019s actual performance. Which was smoking. Like the rest of the soundtrack. Although it\u2019s all over the map compared to the focused Italian pop sampler that was the \u2018Big Night<\/em>\u2018 soundtrack, there is a wealth of great music here, some originals new and old (Martinis! Liquid Liquid!), as well as a hella cover of \u2018Sexual Healing<\/a>\u2018 by the Hot 8 Brass Band. The joyfulness of the music supports the simple uplift of the story to good effect and in an integral way, not just as a tacked-on vanity soundtrack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recommended. I\u2019d see it again. If you go, go hungry with a friend and I guarantee you\u2019ll have plenty to discuss while sating your heavily stoked appetite afterwards. As this is the sort of film that touches our better natures, however slightly, you might find yourself giving props to the chef and leaving a generous tip for your server.

[originally published 6-24-14]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jon Favreau seems like a straight-up guy, likable even. I noticed him early on in his career but never really thought much about him until the \u2018Iron Man\u2018 franchise. He directed the first two, both of them insanely profitable and hugely satisfying, and co-starred to good effect in the third. He reminds me a little […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":203,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-filmspiel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregneeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregneeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregneeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregneeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregneeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=202"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/gregneeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":286,"href":"https:\/\/gregneeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202\/revisions\/286"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregneeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregneeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregneeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregneeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}