Writer/Director: Gurinder Chadha
Country: US/UK
Cuisine: Multiple
Film Rating: 7/10
Foodie Rating: 8/10
Gurinder Chadha is fond of depicting meals in her films, to the extent that many of them feature food in the titles. From her early feature Bhaji on the Beach (1993) and as a writer with The Mistress of Spices (2005), food is an inherent part of the lives of the protagonists and their communities: from Bend It Like Beckham (2002), whose tagline even emphasises the food – “Who wants to cook Aloo Gobi when you can bend a ball like Beckham?” – to the celebratory wedding and betrothal musical Bride and Prejudice (2004). In What’s Cooking? the food on offer is being prepared within a Los Angeles neighbourhood where families, their friends and acquaintances gather together to celebrate Thanksgiving. Being a Gurinder Chadha film, the many cross-cultural aspects of her characters are brought to the fore as well as their individual ideological and personal desires which create conflict, romance, misunderstandings and humour. And What’s Cooking? embraces all these elements with its depiction of celebrations with a large variety of cultural cuisines expected by all and sundry (as well as a KFC bargain bucket to mitigate a cooking disaster) so the titular question is distinctively accurate.
With any feast, ingredients need to be purchased, prepared and cooked in the kitchen ready for consumption at the family feast. And in this way the film covers the whole process from conception and preparation to serving and eating, from starters to desserts with accompanying beverages for its ravenous protagonists. But this isn’t just about the food. Each family’s meal may be central to their day but families are complicated and have all sorts of issues to deal with. And they aren’t just cultural, they are also inter-generational. What’s Cooking also refers to the family problems and secrets that are all building up and may well be revealed before the day is through – whether it’s an estranged husband who has been invited to the family’s celebration not knowing that his former wife’s new boyfriend will also be joining them; a couple who have problems with their children – their youngest son is hiding a gun and their eldest has lied that he cannot attend this year due to college work but has secretly joined his girlfriend’s family across the road; elderly parents coming to terms with their daughter’s lesbian lover; a wife dealing with an interfering mother in law in the context of a family row over the son’s desire to choose his future.
What’s Cooking? is a true smorgasbord of both food and culture in that each family has a different heritage and, as such, the food being prepared reflects their traditional cuisine within the context of the quintessential American holiday of Thanksgiving. The ‘prepare and eat’ element, whilst mouth-watering, really forms the background of the narrative; it is the characters, with their desires, their problems and their conflicts that add the spice to proceedings. Relationships, particularly those between family members, are complex and What’s Cooking? opens the lid of the cooking pot to reveal the contents where tensions are simmering and could reach boiling point at any time.
At turns funny, sweet, confrontational, sad and occasionally poignant, What’s Cooking? is a film with food and family firmly at its heart.
You can buy the film here in the UK and here in the US.
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