Carl Casper, played by Jon Favreau, is a chef who cooks both for the love of cooking, and for something to pay the bills. But mostly for the love of cooking. If you don't find any hint of passion in what you are doing, then what's the point of even doing it. That's what Carl comes to realize for himself. With that, he quits his job at a fine-dining restaurant, buys a food truck and starts off from scratch, cooking what he loves to cook.
The screenplay for 'Chef' feels very fresh and new in many circumstances. The characters are lovable, without being too heavy-handed. There's very few cliches involving circumstantial changes of the plot, there are no villains or so-called 'bad guys' (aside from a certain food critic). It's just a very simple yet really affective story, with some really good looking food.
I myself have worked in the restaurant business for a number of years, and a fair amount of what you see in the first half of this movie is pretty accurate, especially when it comes to the behavior of the chefs and cooks in the kitchen, when the night is hot. Jon Favreau himself said in an interview about the movie how many other movies about restaurants and chefs always look and feel all so happy-go-lucky. And he said (his words, not mine) that that was a bunch of bull$#!+. Now, I don't know if I would go so far as to say that about other movies trying to do some good. But I will agree that it's (the restaurant business) never always fun and games. It has it's down times aplenty. The best you can do is to make the most of it, and hope for something good in the end. You really could say that for just about anything in life.
My rating: 3.5 / 4
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