Movie Review – Chef by Suhel Johar

Chef Is A Sugar Coated Feel Good Film About Food & Family.

 

After Barah Aana and Airlift, Raja Krishna Menon has come up with an official adaptation of the 2014 James Favreau’s English film Chef. Starring Saif Ali Khan and the national award winning Malayalam films’ actress Padmapriya Jankimirman in the lead Chef is a sugar coated feel good film about food, family, and one man's flawed but abiding love for both. The film's core message is clearly positive -- be true to yourself and your work -- but beware if you're on a diet: There are plenty of mouth-watering scenes set in the kitchen.

Saif Ali Khan is Roshan Kalra - a 41-year-old, three Michelin-star chef who finds himself in the throes of an existential crisis. Once upon a time, Roshan was so passionate about cooking that he ran away from home because his father insisted on a more conventional profession for him. But food was his passion. After much financial struggle, and unsupported by his family, he did a course in a culinary institute in Goa, and started getting very well known for his creative, multi-cuisine dishes. Roshan later moved to the USA and slept on kitchen floors and worked his way up to a New York restaurant. Early in the film, Roshan has a melt-down in his New York restaurant and is promptly fired.

Though having realised his ambition, Roshan is now exhausted and unemployed after the meltdown in New York.  More importantly now he has lost his mojo. The break turns out to be a blessing as Roshan decides to fly back to Kochi to reignite his relationship with his ex-wife Radha (Padmapriya Janakiraman) and spend some time with his son Armaan (Svar Kamble), who has only been watching his father on Skype. There, the rich boy-friend of his ‘ex'  Biju (Milind Soman) offers him a business deal and suggests he start a restaurant of his own. The premises will be free - a vintage, double decker bus that he can convert into a food truck. Roshan’s sous chef (Chandan Roy Sanyal) from the restaurant in New York joins him. By now, Armaan or Ari has come to see his father as a role model while Radha too is enormously supportive of the new enterprise, and all seems well with the world again.

The trouble with the film is that its script is inconsistent and rather too sweet coated for one’s consumption. The script does not bother to explain the reason behind the meltdown, it just happens because it may have happened in the original. There are no areas of conflict in the life of this chef once he comes back to India, and the film moves along with very sweet characters being nice to each other. The interactions between all characters in the film are tasteless; without irony, humour or passion. The relationships between Roshan, his ‘ex’ and her lover, is presented as a mature, post-modern way of dealing with a failed marriage. It's a fresh take on post-divorce, without the usual treacle and may be politically correct, but is terribly boring to watch.

The narrative is slow paced and the film drags a bit, especially in the second half. Another complaint about Chef, it's that the ending can be spotted a few food trucks away. But that doesn't feel like a major disappointment because there’s also enough to enjoy here. The film is a celebration of food, of what it means to cook a meal and to serve people you love with your own hands. As food sizzles on pans – it’s been lovingly captured on screen by cinematographer Priya Seth - you will start to get hungry.  

Raja Krishna Menon’s last work is no doubt superior to Chef in many aspects. His work as a director mainly suffers on account of an inconsistent script concocted by the director along with Ritesh Shah and Suresh Nair. Menon’s Malayali background probably made him to set a lot of context and content in the mallu world, which anyways seemed convincing.

The film has been shot very well by Priya Seth. The camera seemed to have food fetish and thus could capture the food related stuff very well, along with the non-food scenes. Shivkumar V. Panicker’s needed to be more tight and crisp. Music by Raghu Dixit and Amaal Malik works in the film.

Performancewise, Saif Ali Khan nails it down and seems an apt choice for his role. His is a stand out performance and one of the best of this year. Padmapriya Janakiraman is wonderful and her work is impactful. Svar Kamble makes the most of his role to impress you with his performance. It is good to see a suitably cast Milind Soman after a long time and he does well. Chandan Roy Sanyal as the faithful aide is refreshing. Dinesh P Nair as food truck driver makes his presence felt. Sobhita Dhulipala passes muster.

On the whole, Chef is a simple film trying to balance emotion and humour and a bit of sentiment unfortunately the recipe is a little flawed and comes across as edible but not good enough to leave you satiated.