Chef

Carl Casper: I may bot do everything great in my life, but I'm good at this. I manage to touch people's lives with what I do and I want to share this with you.

Chef is a movie that continually baffles me. I had it recommended to me by several diverse sources before I finally watched it and over a year later I still hear people talking about it or listening to the admittedly great soundtrack. But I have have a difficult time understanding its popularity. It's a simple story. After an accidental Twitter war with a food critic (Oliver Platt) who gave him a bad review, chef Carl Casper (Jon Favreau) quits his job to start a food truck with his sous chef (John Leguizamo) and his son (Emjay Anthony). The cast is impressive. The photography is beautiful. The soundtrack is festive.

Then what's the problem? Well, once they're on the road, the conflict stops. There's no more arguments with the food critics, no familial strife over custody or shoddy parenting, no financial woes with the business, nothing. Everything's roses from then on out. So how is a movie with half a plot so popular across so many different groups of people? There's something about it that speaks to us as people. We see characters we like with all of the flaws and foibles we see in ourselves. We see men being men, people living their dreams, a father teaching his son and a son helping his father. We see people struggle with and overcome the social media with which our lives are so entangled. And in the war over our food, we see our simple, local cuisine triumph over the overpriced, inaccessible food of the wealthy.

This is a movie that will want to make you want to celebrate the simple joys of life, family and food while eating the best damn grilled cheese sandwich of your life. Just be prepared that the only twist in this movie is when it suddenly ends.