Sometimes its good to revisit old friends. And I would consider Martha one. Mostly that is. My timing was bad though as I started to
watch one of the most mouth-watering movies about cooking that I can recall
just as I sat down to eat my Mexican Take Out Dinner.
Martha is a cold fish, and apart from her habit of skulking
off to hang out in the walk in deep freeze of the chic Hamburg restaurant where
she is head Chef, we never really know why.
The movie opens with her lying on a couch having her weekly session with
a therapist and he stops her in full flow as she is reeling off recipe
after recipe and he asks her why she is there. She replies that its because Frida
her Boss, for some inexplicable reason, said it was either that or the sack. By the end of the movie, we know that the
Boss was right.
Martha’s small world consists of work and more work,
and she is totally at a loss for what to do with herself on her weekly
day-off. Her world gets shaken up
however when her sister is killed in an automobile accident and suddenly she
has to care for Lina her 8 year old newly orphaned niece. Pining for the mother lost and the father she
never knew, Lina at least has a reason to be perpetually angry.
When Frida employs Mario a new chef to assist in the
kitchen during this difficult time, Martha takes umbrage thinking her position
is under threat and treats her new colleague badly. Meanwhile Lina will neither put up with
babysitters or eat any food at all, and when Martha takes her to work one
night, it is Mario that coaxes her into eating and getting a smile back on the
young girl's face. The nightly visits
become regular routines as does being late for school every day where the
exhausted Lina sleeps through every lesson.
The Headmaster says that this must stop, as does Frida, causing temper
tantrums at home resulting in Lina trying to run away.
Lina contrives to have Mario come over to cook for her
and Martha and the icy maiden starts to thaw.
The impending romance is not going to be easy, and frankly it's the one
key element in this story that somehow doesn't gel. It would have been much more convincing
having her falling for the architect neighbor!
When Martha had first taken Lina in she promised that
she would somehow find her father even though all she knew was that his name was
Giuseppe and he lived in Italy. And
she actually manages to do just that and the very morning after she and Mario
have had a sleepover (!) Giuseppe turns up on the front door to claim the
daughter he has never seen.
And they all live happily ever after. Eventually.
The clue is in the tip that Martha gives Giuseppe when she warns him that
Lina is like her ‘and difficult to get to know’. Very true, but in fairness the parts of
Martha that we do get to know, even if she never really thawed, are quite
intriguing mainly due to the fact that she is played so wonderfully by the incredibly
talented Martina Gedick.
Martha is not a typical romantic comedy heroine as the
story centers so much on her helplessness around children, but there is
something beautifully touching about the way she approaches dealing with Lina,
and the rest of her life, by just cooking wonderful food. It nearly works.
Revisiting it was a joy, and I still cannot think why on
earth Hollywood insisted on remaking it in English and renaming it ‘No
Reservations’ and having Ms Gedick’s subtle and moving performance replaced by
the brassy (and anything BUT subtle) Catherine Zeta-Jones. It’s like substituting the Foie Gras Martha
cooked with a Big Mac!
Since this was made in 2001, if you hadn’t noticed that Ms Gedick's star has risen even higher and some of the many movies she has starred in since include the Oscar winning 'The Life of
Others' and 'The Bader Meinhof Complex' .
★★★★★★★★
