User reviews

"What's Cooking" is yet another film which shows a short period of time in the lives of multiple disconnected characters who have something in common. In "Magnolia" the common denominator was proximity. In "All the Rage" it was guns. In "The Five Senses" is was senses. Etc. Etc. Etc. In "What's Cooking" it's food....Thanksgiving Day dinner.

"What's Cooking" has superb casting, direction, script/screenplay, etc. However it has one huge problem which it shares with other films of this ilk: Too many characters and too little time with which to develop them sufficient to create that all important bond with the audience. The result is a herky-jerky story flow and a disconnected audience which is reduced to pure voyeurism. Too busy and too superficial.

Incredible how they got the issues around Asian-American right, and African-American right, and Jewish-American right. Very, very perceptive and well done! The Asian American issues with the girl and the mother are very well done and so true to life. Same with the problems with the African American father and his son--and his mother. the Latin-American wife-husband-boyfriend problem was exceptional. So many things about the Jewish American were absolutely true. and mixing up the gay-lesbian thing with the Jewish family was perfect. it was a bit unrealistic that even in l.a. all these people live within hearing distance of each other, and that was the only contrived element of the movie. Wasn't there some other way around that?

I liked this movie. I thought the dialogue and the reactions amongst each family to the secrets/revelations was very realistic. It really did give a taste of how Thanksgiving is celebrated and how American families interact with each other during the holidays. I also liked how each family, though from a different background, was relatable in some way. Definitely would recommend to non-Americans for a look at what Thanksgiving is like for us.

WHAT'S COOKING? (2000) ***1/2 Mercedes Ruehl, Joan Chen, Alfre Woodard, Kyra Sedgwick, Julianna Marguilies, Dennis Haysbert, Maury Chaykin, Lainie Kazan, Victor Rivers, Douglas Spain, A Martinez, Francois Chau, Will Yun Lee, Estelle Harris, Ralph Manza. Wonderful sleeper depicting four Los Angeles melting pot families all celebrating Thanksgiving, cross cutting between homes sharing the universal theme of family, love and ultimately acceptance of one another. Funny, emotional, intelligent and superbly acted with an equally impressive script by Gurinder Chadha (who directed) and Paul Mayeda Berges her real-life companion. Stand out performances especially by Ruehl, Chen & Woodard as strong-willed matriarchs and Sedgwick and Marguilies as one of the sexiest onscreen lesbian couples in some time. Kudos to the off-screen cooks who whip up some truly mouth-watering displays in uniquely different yet delicious dinners for the quartet broods.

Enjoyed the movie in spite of Julianna. Horrible actress. I'm just glad I don't have to write 10 lines like everyone else did 18 years ago.

It was somewhat entertaining but ultimately disappointing. The film has been Hollywoodized completely -- it's slick and simple. Some of the lines and acting is rather wooden. Many of the characters are two dimensional.

Not half as good as Bhaji on the Beach and proof that money spent on making a film look good does not necessarily make it into a good film.

This movie is a comedy about the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday. It follows four families (black, Latino, Jewish, and Vietnamese) during their holiday celebrations, with all the messes that crop up during big family gatherings. Each of the families has its own problems, which are to some extent intertwined.

An example of one of the family messes: A young man in the Latino family bumps into his father (who had moved out some time earlier) at the grocery store, and invites him to Thanksgiving dinner. His mother is furious, because she doesn't want anything to do with her estranged husband, particularly during a big holiday event.

The acting and directing are very good, but the writing and editing are really wonderful. The cast is huge, but the editing manages to make it easy for the audience to keep track of everyone. It's full of laughs (and some light drama), but aside from some stereotyping, mostly realistic. Even though there are quite a number of name actors, the screen time is divided among the cast to fit the story, not to fit the actors' egos -- an impressive balancing act for the director and producers.

The food scenes, aside from a few kitchen disasters, were enough to inspire quite an appetite. It's a good thing the Seattle International Film Festival scheduled the screening in the afternoon, so I could have dinner right after the movie.

This is one of the best recent comedies I've seen.

I particularly enjoyed this movie although I felt the audience was forced to endure the politically correct themes of the day. I was beginning to wonder how many dysfunctional acts could be shown in one movie. The acting was superb with Mercedes Ruehl taking top honors. The lesbian couple was one of the acts of pandering and could have been more realistically replaced by something more pertinent to a Jewish family. As the movie progressed I was able to look past the blatant pandering and look at what I thought was the basis of the plot. It never occurred to me that this was an attempt to show the multicultural diversity in one city or our country. Instead, I thought it was a good look at human nature in general, regardless of culture. Somewhere between Martha Stewart and Norman Rockwell we have developed an idea of what the perfect Thanksgiving and Christmas should be. We take this perception and then create it in accordance to our own specific culture. We think that certain foods are required and everyone will get along. As we all know the perfect Thanksgiving is only an idealistic goal very seldom achieved. Thirty minutes into the movie I was depressed because I have been through similar holidays. Maybe not with the same circumstances but nonetheless marred by burnt food, family arguments, etc. I thoroughly enjoyed this and would recommend any newlywed couple planning to host a holiday dinner for their combined families to watch. What I basically got from this movie was a reinforcement of real life holidays, relax, do what you can to make it a success, but most importantly, enjoy the fellowship of the family without the drive for perfection

With the exception of A WALK ON THE MOON starring Diane Lane and Viggo Mortensen, this film is easily my favorite indie film. I first saw it four years ago when my sister was home from San Diego state for Easter vacation and we rented the DVD the following day from Blockbuster. Some of the most talented names in film (Oscar-nominee Alfre Woodard, Oscar-winner Mercedes Rheul, Lainie Kazan and Joan Chen) and up-and-coming talent (Dennis Haysbert of FAR FROM HEAVEN and the ALLSTATE commercials) star in this terrific ensemble film with a brilliant script and first-rate performances most notably from Woodard, Rheul and Kyra Segewick.

The story (set throughout the Fairfax district of L.A.) revolves around four different families (focusing primarily on the women of each) all of four different ethnicities: one African-American, one Hispanic, one Jewish and one Vietnamese and the family conflicts they deal with over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. Woodard's family is dealing with a marriage that is on the brink of a divorce with two subplots of an extremely irritating mother-in-law (Ann Weldon) and a troubled son in his early twenties; Rheul's family is confronting the fact that she has separated from her husband (Victor Rivers) and has moved on with her life and has a promising relationship with her boyfriend (A Martinez) despite what her son wants. Kazan's family is up in arms with her daughter (Segewick) involved in a lesbian relationship with her recently married life-partner (Julianna Margulies). Chen's family is most definitely the most dysfunctional while their daughter is involved in a relationship with a young white boy, their eldest son uses his midterms schedule as a false pretense to avoid coming home for the holidays and is seeing Rhuel's daughter and Chen's teenage son has been suspended from school for stealing a test while also being dangerously involved with a gang. One highlight of the films is where Woodard's friends come over to her house for Thanksgiving dinner and their rebellious, uptight teenage daughter wants nothing to do with any of them. When confronted by Woodard's mother-in-law about what she and Woodard's little daughter and her friend are doing, she states that "we're playing Thanksgiving... she's the mommy, she's the daddy and I'm the alcoholic, cult-worshiping, Satanic stepmother!"

The story moves in a very transitional pattern alternating between the four families with very interesting scenarios for each. Gurinder Chadha (director of BEND IT LIKE BEKHAM and the upcoming BRIDE AND PREJUDICE) has really outdone herself with the unique and oft-times exasperating ties that bring these families together. Another engaging aesthetic in this film (possibly the most important) is the incredibly diverse variety of delicious food each family cooks throughout the midsection of the film in preparation for the holiday tradition. You can almost smell the enticing scents of the apple and pumpkin pies and the turkey and mashed potatoes as well as the Asian and Hispanic dishes. The special features on the DVD of the films offers six different recipes as they were used in the actual film.

This is one film that my whole family and I love to watch every year on Thanksgiving and one we watch throughout the year as well. Go rent it sometime this weekend and see what you think. I really think you'll love it!

Here's my two cents.

The director gave admirable attempt in trying to give us four different point of views on a typically American tradition, and it has it's share of entertaining moments. But somehow it fell short of my expectations. It gave us four ethnic families, but failed to give us some depth to the material. The film's take on issues is often too shallow to serve any lasting, meaningful merit on such an important cultural topic.

What most critics failed to see is that the truth is, most people have very little idea about many other cultures in this world. So we just accept what we see on the screen. Perhaps this contributed to the flawed script, which pigeonholed the families into what we might expect from families of African, Hispanic, Jewish, and Vietnamese decent. Mind you, it seems though that the writers are trying to be as politically correct as possible, and the genuine attempt on being culturally diverse (which many people appreciated, including me), the film is marred slightly by the lack of true, unbiased understanding of different cultures. Hence, the result looks like a bunch of families living out their stereotyped stigma.

I loved one scene around the African-American dinner table, where the girl reminded everyone that today their families can enjoy eating Turkey, but at the cost of real Americans who suffered colonialism. It was the best scene of the film, and unfortunately it was a very short scene.

The script needs a bit of polish, and has only touched the tip of a bigger iceberg. But nonetheless, this is a very enjoyable film. Highly recommended.

It's nothing but the most stressful version of what families all over the country experience in their own homes during holiday reunions. Ruehl is fantastic, and the lesbian family stuff is solid, but everything else is utterly forgettable melodrama.

With Girlfight, this tops my best of 2000 list. Not that I have seen them all, and not that there's much competition. This was such a dreadful year in Hollywood I'm swearing off Oscar day. But this IS an amazing film (as is Girlfight). Let women direct more, I say, and let budgets be slashed in subatomic particles. Most importantly, let people who have stuff to say, say it. All the other ones should wait for inspiration.

One of the amazing things about this film is its pace. It is breathless, and you never quite stop laughing or gasping or having some variety of intense edge-of-your-seat emotional reaction. Which is amazing, because the plot is so complex, it could easily have gotten lost in chaos. Even as you laugh, the tension doesn't let up. The stories unfold rapidly and dramatically and with full comic timing, and you never quite stop marveling. We are not treated very often to this kind of inventive filmmaking.

If you've lived in LA for any significant length of time, you'll realize from the start that this film is not meant to be realistic. The MTA scenes at the beginning are so un-LA, so colorful and happy, you know this is going to be a grand fest of the imagination and the heart, not a tale of urban life. (For one, people on MTA buses tend to sit dejectedly, not to have a collective laugh&lovefest). Similarly, the ethnic angle is more life-as-we-would-like-it-to-be than life-as-is. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. In fact, it's so refreshing to see race on film without having to trudge through misery, pain, and blood, you want to weep with gratitude. What's Cooking? is full of big themes treated with similar lightness: broken families, same-sex relationships, tradition vs. progress, parenthood, urban violence, gender roles, politics... Even as it packs it all in, the film does it all seamlessly, treating it as the stuff of everyday's life it in fact is (funny how movies tend to deal with one issue at the time, and how we've grown to consider that a good thing).

But lightness is not glibness or superficiality. There's a big heart and a big sharp mind at the center of What's Cooking? and problems get taken seriously. Clearly, since this is the world as we'd like it to be, most things find some sort of satisfactory conclusion by the end. And that is more than all right, because we're tired to see gays and people of color go down, families drown in waters to thick to negotiate, and all the vast repertoire of disasters that make critics think a film "got it right." Nope. Not here. But the world as we'd like it to be can still be a POSSIBLE world, and this is ultimately the exhilarating nutshell of What's Cooking?: that joy is not beyond our reach, the pain can give way to healing, and that, hell, we can, maybe not perfectly but nonetheless, all get along.

Well done!

Experience Thanksgiving with four different families (Jewish, Vietnamese, Hispanic, African American) in a Los Angeles neighborhood. It has a lot of the typical holiday family issues and few not so typical. I think basically it's showing that even though the cultures are very different, the way people react to the holidays is pretty universal. It has a nice blend of humor mixed with the stress of holiday and makes for enjoyable feast. As a side note, it has a reference to my alma mater, UCSB...which, to set the record straight, does not have a business school.

*** (out of 4)

My friend always wanted to rent this movie because there was something about the picture on the box that appealed to her. One day I relented, we rented it, and I ended up flushing two hours of my life down the world's deepest toilet. This movie addressed just about every issue, both major and minor, known to man (Did somebody mention "eskimos with yeast infections?" I don't know. Why the oversight, Chadra?); and none too insightfully. No objectivity, rather one person presents the "correct," PC view while the other person is depicted as being a backward thinking half-a-moron. But, anyway, rent this movie and make a drinking game out of it. Each time a new issue pops up out of absolutely nowhere, take a big swig of beer. Every time one of the more seasoned performers over-acts, take another sip. Whenever one of the newcomers starts getting on your nerves with their high-pitched whining, drink the whole can. Take little sips every time the music gets super melodramatic. Don't drive after watching this movie. Seriously, this movie is so bad that it's actually pretty fun to watch with the right people.

Holidays are a time for families to come together. More often than not, these little "reunions" manage to bring out the worst in people and unpleasant episodes from the past get dredged up and brutally dissected for the thousandth time. Or your parents may take turns pushing your buttons (which of course they programmed in the first place) and endlessly aggravating you with a never-ending barrage of life questions. "When are you getting married?" "When are we getting grandchildren?" "What do you intend to do with your life?" Small wonder that the suicide rate increases exponentially around these times of joy.

Rather than limit herself to one family's deluge of dysfunctional dialogue at Thanksgiving, writer/director Gurminder Chadha, zooms in on a multi-family multicultural view of the holiday. We are introduced to the Jewish family with the lesbian daughter and her lover, the Hispanic family with the philandering husband and newly liberated wife, the cross-generational Vietnamese family's struggle with old traditions vs. new realities, and the successful yet fractured African American family. Happy holidays!

Unlike "The Big Night" where food is intended to inspire pure sensory decadence, or "Like Water for Chocolate" in which it takes on a mystical, magical quality, Chadha's uses food to illuminate the contrasts between the families in the piece. While turkey is served as the main course at every dinner table, it is prepared, cooked and presented very differently by each family. The roasted polenta, fajitas, spring rolls and homemade macaroni and cheese that supplant the side dishes typically associated with Thanksgiving - corn, cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes - further enhance the feeling (and reminded me that I had missed dinner). But movies do not live by food alone.

What sets this film apart from its contemporaries is not its parallel, intertwining plots, or the setting, but its execution. Any of the plots could easily provide enough fodder for a full-length movie, which makes their skillful amalgamation in 106 minutes that much more impressive. This is more remarkable when one takes into account that no one in the voluminous (there are dozens of speaking parts) and talented ensemble cast is there as window dressing - every character is solid and has a clearly defined purpose. Rarer still is the fact that the lion's share of screen time is devoted to the development of strong female characters, which might explain what drew Mercedes Ruehl, Julianna Marguelies and Joan Chen to the project. My praise has not yet ended.

The dialogue is realistic and well written, and the situations, though sometimes tongue-in-cheek, familiar and believable. The pacing is quick, slowing down to take a breather only when the audience needs it, but never leaves the viewer behind. The editing is tight and clean, rarely allowing any one scene to run too long. Finally, the cinematographer deserves congratulations for the exceptionally sumptuous food shots, I swear I could smell the turkey. In movies, as in life however, nothing is perfect.

The movie does lapse into stereotypes in several instances, for example, could anyone be as truly annoying and clueless as the character of Aunt Bea (played to wonderful excess by Estelle Harris)? I hope not. The film also goes to the sentimentality well a little too often and the ending, while clever, is contrived. While noticeable, these flaws are merely mildly distracting, and do not overwhelm the film.

As the saying goes, I laughed, I cried, I cringed, it was an experience. * Make reservations to catch this delectable dish as soon as it's served up at your local theater.

*I didn't actually cry, I just got a little something in my eye.

Funny, charming, sad, and completely entertaining throughout.... a very talented ensemble cast...some surprises in the story. This is, I think, a holiday classic. I look forward to seeing it again and again.

"What's Cooking" is one of the most non-dogmatic feminist movies I've seen (as compared to say "24 Hour Woman") as exemplified by a climactic scene of one mother stuffing her face with two pieces of homemade pie amidst crisis while declaring "I'm weak? Is it weak to want to hold the family together?"

So many holiday or family gathering movies (like "Avalon" and "Hannah and her Sisters" and "Eat Drink Man Woman") have been made by men and they always felt off balance to me compared to my observations and experiences. Here the women in the kitchen are symbolically and functionally at the center of the meal preparation, the meal and the families.

Other women directors have been successful at portraying a single ethnic group's family issues, such as "Double Happiness" or Nancy Savoca's "True Love." But this is a multi-ethnic All-Americans Thanksiving in L.A. (reminding me of the children's book "Molly's Pilgrim") an L.A. where people from different traditions (Vietnamese, Chicano, African-American and Jewish) all integrate the trappings of the Pilgrims into that basic of ethnic identity--food-- to intersect in unexpected ways, at work, in the community, in their homes and in their hearts.

It's an impressive cast of actresses in particular; it's noteworthy that such a stellar cast would do a small indie -- clearly they jump at the chance to get "meaty" roles for women.

The audience laughed, and cried, and gasped. While your popcorn will pale beside the feasts before your eyes, be sure to eat something during the movie cause you'll be real hungry afterwards!

(originally written 11/19/2000)

After watching this movie on a boring Saturday afternoon, I couldn't quite figure out why so many people liked it. It wasn't "heartwarming" or "clever"; it was merely an amalgam of every other "mismatched people coming together during a holiday and despite their ideological differences learning something about each other" movie ever made.

The characters are a stereotype bouillabaisse -- We have the Blacks, the Hispanics, The Jews, The Asians, and the Homosexuals -- and they never do anything except what everyone expects characters in a movie like this to do. The black mother declares that it's "all right, then" when it's mentioned that another black character is at church instead of helping prepare dinner (because all blacks love church), the Hispanics seem only capable of speaking Spanish when the greet each other or make exclamations, the lesbians do nothing but cuddle and kiss (and one of them wears a bandanna. Because all lesbians dress like Ani DiFranco), and the Vietnamese family owns a video store. In L.A. Imagine that.

Oh, and the movie is called "What's Cooking" because each ethnic family cooks a different version of what they think Thanksgiving dinner should be! The Black mother wants cornbread and macaroni and cheese, the Hispanics are shown rolling tortillas, the Vietnamese family is deep frying spring rolls; I'm surprised there wasn't a bottle of Manischewitz on the Jewish table. This is all shown via the time-honored tradition of the "musical-montage", where they play the Surfari's "Wipeout", rapidly switching the instruments used in the melody to reflect the respective cultures. Isn't that cute? Anyway, once the director is finished establishing how different everyone is, he attempts to show the inner humanity that we, as all people of every race, religion and culture share, by inventing implausible and overly dramatic conflicts for each of the families to deal with. It would be a plot-killer to mention what each of these conflicts are, but rest assured that they are indeed surprises, that is if you have been sleeping for the first half of the movie. The theme of "disgracing the family" runs pretty strong throughout.

All in all, if you're the type of person who enjoys those new-fangled movies that revolve around the stories of unlikely characters intertwining, well, you still won't like this movie. If you like extended montages of food being passed around a table, then you need to put this in your Netflix queue. But if stereotypes and clichés are endearing to you, then make sure you ask for this for Christmas. Or Hanukkah. Or Kwanzaa.

I found this lame excuse for a slice-of-life comedy to be truly insulting and stereotyped. Only the Hispanic family is characterized with any dignity at all. Dennis Haysbert gives the worst performance of a distinguished career as the feckless husband of Alfre Woodard. Julianna Marguiles gets to smile winsomely and kiss Kyra Sedgwick, but has little else to do. Maury Chaikin is awful and Lanie Kazan trots out her Jewish mother yet again. As for, Joan Chen, she is so bad, it's embarrassing. The writing is puerile, and the situations pedestrian.

Give thanks if you've managed to avoid this Thanksgiving-Day-themed turkey!

We've had AMERICAN PIE, AMERICAN BEAUTY, and AMERICAN PSYCHO. This is AMERICAN STEW.

The film is entertaining as it mixes drama and comedy into an interesting recipe. To use other metaphors, the film is the American tossed salad or mixing bowl. We see four quite different families experiencing Thanksgiving day in seemingly different ways. But underneath, we see also the similarities of the joys, pains, and struggles as the various families deal with the reality hidden beneath the holiday veneer.

As the family members connect with and disconnect from each other and with members of the other families, the surface is pulled away, and we see what is really underneath the pleasantries and polite facades. This is a very accurate depiction of the sadness and humor that surround family holidays, and the film might be a good thing to watch just before or during such holidays. We see ourselves reflected in the mirror of the movie and can learn that holidays can be hilarious pains.

From the first time I saw the preview for this film, I was hooked. I rented it and 'What's Cooking' lived up to my expectations. The movie has four stories of family life and all four are completely interesting and honest. The cast is amazing and couldn't have been better. I recommend this movie to anyone. I've watched it about 7 times in the last 3 months.

Fantastic!!

The move was 'Los Angeles' all the way and instrumented in such a symphonic manner as it spirally migrated between four contemporary ethnic families. I am still thinking and talking about this movie experience.

Of course, one must live the Los Angeles experience and have eaten with and / or developed friendships with Latino, Black, Vietnamese and White folks. And observed the tugging between the older landed immigrants and their first and second generation children with contemporary Los Angeles pressures of survival.

Most importantly, all these displays of tensions and culture differences are framed within a Thanksgiving Dinner in the foreground. I love movies that remind me that I did not eat my lunch before attending the screening, and my stomach growls to each frying and tossing and baking in dynamic hot color on the screen.

If "American Beauty" was the hidden behavioral secret of suburban United States, then "What's Cooking" is Los Angeles's less sexually graphic approach to urban family, food, culture, love and diversity in choice, and youthful rebellion towards acculturation as well as striving to regain one's own soul and roots.

It opens with a bus ride on the MTA (Metropolitan Transit Authority) which defines Los Angeles and the means where most ethnic residents migrate from home to work. That scene also defines the cultural gap between those that have and those that don't have -- yet live in near proximity to each other by mere sweat, honor and honesty.

We then move to learn about these four established families where the 'thanks' in Thanksgiving is somewhat misplaced and displaced as personal emotional baggage is brought to the dinner table, along with uninvited guests and surprised verbal emotional slips. Dirty linen gets exposed through the lashing of tongues and languages. Layer by symphonic layer with subtitles when needed.

This wonderful movie does not fall victim to its complex plot of multiple families and multiple family members. The movie's spiral rotation between emerging and related situations maintains our understanding of the emotion and humor shared by each family, but with a tasteful cultural twist in each turn of the screw.

The unifying climax is something that anybody who lives in Los Angeles hopes never happens on their own street: the sharp report of a gun shot. We all hear it in the distance all to often, but never on our own street. Not so far.

Nor this diverse, striving family neighborhood until this Thanksgiving Day celebration.

7-plus out of 10??? Did the other respondents see the same old tired stew that i did with every ethnic stereotype and cliche in the book? Yes, it has a fine cast, but it is totally wasted. You can see the disgust on Joan Chen's face as she nails in her performance. And Dennis Haysbert is trapped in the worst character of his career. My rating: 2.

I liked this film. I liked it more while I was watching it. I had to come back to liking it on my walk to the subway, after the rush of all the food on the screen wore off. The four story lines, in my opinion, are most palatable if swallowed as modern, urban parables. Over the top cliches? Yes. Simplistic moral lessons? Yes. But, it is juicy with humor and tender with decent sentiments. It's a holiday movie for the Age of Diversity. I doubt it will remain fresh over time. As for the turkey basters, don't ask.