The Weinstein Company
It was only last year when the delightful Chef came out about a damaged chef with issues who redeemed himself by going back to his roots. I liked the movie, which was light and pleasant and filled with fun dialogue and great footage of food. What the movie didn’t have was pretensions of anything else. Not something I can say about this movie.
Burnt comes from director John Wells and stars Bradley Cooper as brilliant but troubled chef Adam Jones. Adam is a two star Michelin chef (which is amazing) but he’s also disgraced. With a stiff narration, Adam informs us he was addicted to alcohol, drugs, and women. He sabotaged his own career and a few of his friends too. After self-inflicted penance of many years and shucking literally a million oysters, he decides to travel to London to get a new start.
This is when the first part of the movie begins, a sort of “heist”-ish feel of getting the old gang back together. Adam bullies Tony (Daniel Brühl), hotelier and the son of his mentor, into giving him a chance to run his kitchen. He manipulates Tony’s current talented sous chef, single mom Helene (Sienna Miller) into joining his team. Adam also grabs young local phenom David and his old French partner/enemy Michel (Omar Sy).
And then it’s time to start getting ready for the new restaurant, and the movie is all about potential. Adam gets tested weekly by a doctor (Emma Thompson) to make sure he stays sober. There’s also the brilliant Matthew Rhys of the fantastic The Americans as Reece, Adam’s rival and three Michelin star chef. And Adam wants that extra star.
Thus begins the second part of the movie, which is the “let’s try and then we’ll fail” part. It’s a fragmented piece, as a few problems leads the perfection demanding Adam to get horribly angry and abusive. Soon enough he’s back to normal, but why should I root for this guy? And yes, he’ll get a chance to do well, and he’ll have a few hurdles to get through. Money owed, sabotages to both self and other, etc. Bradley Cooper imbues this role with a lot of energy and charisma, elevating a character not really well written. The truth is, that’s basically true for all the characters.
If it wasn’t Matthew Rhys, I’d think Reece was a cartoon. If it wasn’t Alicia Vikander as Adam’s astounding beguiling ex-lover, I’d find the character campy. And if it wasn’t Daniel Brühl, I’d be annoyed at the characterization.
As to be expected from a movie like this, the footage of food and the cooking process is quite engaging and visually exciting. That said, the movie is very pretentious and the characters are too. They are constantly talking about new fads and trends and disparaging older ones. Kinda hard to relate. The movie is pretty funny, but not that much so. There are a few decent character moments, but the movie gets kind of rushed as it nears the end.
Ultimately the movie doesn’t quite pull off its task of getting us to root for the “bad guy reformed” because we barely understood his downfall in the first place. That said, I liked it, but it’s not really a light and fluffy thing like Chef. I’d call it a Netflix movie.
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