By Sammi Schenkel, Film Critic.
I feel the need to say I was excited to see “Burnt.” I am a Food Network channel, “Top Chef,” “Chopped” addict. My brother cooks and his friends cook for a living as well, so I’ve had a taste of that lifestyle.
“Burnt” is the story of Adam Jones (Bradley Cooper) who is trying for three Michelin Stars – in the culinary world, it’s a sign of an extremely high level of cookery. To quote one of his cooks, “One star is like being Luke Skywalker, three is like you’re Yoda.”
Jones ruined his career in Paris three years before the story begins, and he relocates to London after being sober from “drugs, alcohol and women” for two years. Jones builds up his team by manipulating his former cohorts in strange ways and with his past co-workers in tow he begins building his dream restaurant. For example, he goes to the son of his mentor, Tony (Daniel Bruhl) in Paris who he staged (the a needs an apostrophe on it), which is basically interning at a fine dining restaurant and worked his way up to becoming executive chef for his mentor at his London hotel and restaurant. That is a huge compliment in the culinary world.
He explains that he is now clean of all his vices and is ready to makeup for his mistakes in Paris. The manipulation is where he talks to a major player, the restaurant critic Simone (Uma Thurman) in London to eat at his restaurant. He is there when she shows up to eat at the restaurant and Tony knows his food isn’t up to par to receive a glowing review from her. That is just one of many examples of Jones’ manipulation methods.
Overall, I enjoyed the film. I left the theater feeling inspired, craving to create something and cook something special. While watching the opening credits, it was interesting to see that Gordon Ramsey is an executive producer, and they had Mario Batali as a culinary consultant. According to Variety, Cooper trained with Michelin-starred British chef Marcus Wareing to make his character more authentic. You can tell that through the small details, such as when he would chop something the knife cuts were impeccable.
There were, however, a few things I had a problem with; one was how small the roles were for the characters of influential women. Helene (Sienna Miller), her character did a job that was higher in the kitchen hierarchy instead of the role she was recruited by Jones for, and from the beginning was set up as a love interest—not another chef. The maître d’hôtel had a woman as second-in-command, but we never learn her name although she does her job excellently. I’ve noticed this trend a lot since I’ve started to review films, and it makes me disappointed.
Other than that and a couple story holes, I was happy with the film. John Well’s favored rack focuses, a specific technique where the cameraperson or editor manipulate the camera or effect in editing to shift the clear focus from one object or person to another, when they really didn’t need to use them as they were distracting at certain times. Cinematically speaking, it flowed and made sense with the use of clean shots of chefs doing their jobs by going to farmer’s markets, visiting their enemy’s restaurants, to prepping for the next service.
I loved how the story was told first and foremost, a large majority of it wasn’t predictable. As more history fleshed out about his past and future, it smoothly opened up for the twists and turns to come later. The writing was superb, as details were kept from the audience in a talented way. The talent also brought it to life, bringing separate backgrounds into a kitchen family each adding a new strength to the food at the restaurant.
