The Kitchen Brigade (7/10)
A French film that focuses on food, because of course it does.
Anyway, about 80% of this film might have landed in 8 territory, but the last 20% brings it down. Basically, focuses on an aspiring cook that, after leaving her job after getting into a conflict with her owner, ends up working in a hostel that's temporarily sheltering illegal (sorry, "undocumented") migrants in France. I don't know how accurate this is, but basically, all the boys there are under 18, and are trying to find ways to stay in the country, before turning 18 where they'd be deported (it's later revealed that one of them already is over 18 and is subsequently deported). Basically, it turns out that the best food is the friendships we make along the way, so the chef teaches them to cook, while the head of the hostel is trying to set up a vocational course - apparently, if the course is set up and they're accepted, then they can stay in the country.
Like I said, I have no idea how true to life this is. The film never speechifies on the topic, but it's clearly on the side of the migrants/refugees, even if their backstories range from fleeing war to simply seeking better economic opportunities. I'd argue that there isn't an identical similarity here, but that's my view, the film has another.
A bigger problem, however, is how in the last 20% or so, the film veers way off course in terms of pacing and context. I have a sneaking suspicion that a lot of material was left on the cutting room floor here, or maybe they ran out of budget, because a lot of scenes don't really flow well together. We basically enter a whole new sub-plot as the protagonist enters a competition called "The Cook" (not "Le Cook," for some reason) that has her briefly reunite with her old boss, in a scene that lasts about five seconds, and there's never anything beyond that. We rush through to the finals, where the winner will win 50,000 euros to set up their own restaurant. Basically, she uses it as a publicitly stunt, using her students as her cooks to raise awareness, which is a nice twist, but it's spoiled by there being so little context up to this point. For instance, it's hard to portray the use of the boys as chefs as a twist when the rules of the competition haven't been established up to this point. But to go from a more personal film to a more hectic film in the last 20% of running time is such a swerve in direction, that it didn't quite work for me.
Anyway, she wins, she gets the 50,000 euros, which she uses to set up the cooking vocational course (I think, it's vague, again, I'm not sure how the rules of the competition really work), some of the boys get to stay on, some of them don't, the end.
Anyway, good, but not great.
