Chef: SXSW 2014 Review

Film, Reviews, Top Story

Jon Favreau goes from Iron Man to Iron Chef

On a long enough time line, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.

Chuck Palahniuk wrote about it in Fight Club. In the world of Hollywood, that time line can change quickly, especially for a director. Jon Favreau is a prime example. Starting out as a supporting actor in Rudy and PCU, Favreau’s fortunes would change in 1996 when he penned the screenplay to Swingers. That comedy provided a launching pad for the actor to make his way to the director’s chair five years later with Made, a film he also wrote. But over a decade-long stretch Favreau would see his creative integrity plummet as the movies he made with studio money rose. After riding a wave of success with Iron Man and its sequel, Favreau would hit a career impasse with Cowboys & Aliens, an at the time surefire blockbuster that misfired on all cylinders.

Knowing all this, his first film in three years, Chef, arrives as a comeback vehicle, where Favreau returns to independent roots to start anew. When introducing the comedy to a packed attendance inside Austin, Tex., famed Paramount Theatre, Favreau acknowledged a fact that most screenwriters can attest. And that fact is being able to write a brilliant eight-page script, er, treatment, only to stop short and concern yourself with other life priorities (like watching the second season of House of Cards, he remarked jokingly).

A theatergoer can watch and enjoy Chef without knowing the trials that Favreau was beset with after a bungled blockbuster. It would ultimately cost the writer-director a lucrative gig at helming a major tentpole picture for Disney. However, knowing the backstory of Favreau and his falling victim to putting dollars and cents above creative pursuits, it’s hard for this reviewer to watch Chef and not see it as a much needed cathartic release.

In the truest sense, Favreau’s latest is autobiographical to a degree. The title character is Chef Carl Casper (played by Favreau), who is regarded as one of the preeminent chefs in Los Angeles. He has a flair for the kitchen and has the talent to back it up. When we meet him he’s the head chef at a restaurant managed by a pragmatic boss (Dustin Hoffman) who cares little about what area food critics say about the food on the menu. As long as customers walk into the door, that’s fine by him. If that’s not a metaphor for the state of cinema then I don’t know what is.

Casper was once considered a wunderkind in an apron but complacency would be his unraveling. Appeasing his boss sees Casper receive a scathing review from a critic that’s punctuated with such colorful, albeit vitriolic, wordplay. Letting the criticism get to him, Casper learns of Twitter and uses the forum to voice his displeasure. Ipso facto a face-to-face tirade with the critic becomes a viral hit video on YouTube and all it did was cause Casper to lose his comfortable head chef position.

Without the confines of a steady paycheck Carl Casper reassess his priorities and, to his chagrin, allows his ex-wife (Modern Family‘s Sofia Vergara) help him buy a food truck. That’s the crux to the story: a food truck. Casper makes good food. In turn, making food helps him to reconnect with his son Percy (Emjay Anthony), who he’s been neglecting since the divorce and since life as a chef has taken priority.

Chef isn’t revelatory, but its message is positive and Favreau underplays it just enough to have it come off as genuine. While there are moments where the writer-director ribs the audience – like when son Emjay scoffs at the opportunity to visit Disneyworld in favor of New Orleans (take that Mickey Mouse!) – the balance of a work life and a personal life are not lost in their significance. Far too often we get the easy comedic vehicle where you expect the musical score to reach an emotional crescendo as the workaholic parent has a life lesson moment. Thankfully, Favreau presents his fopaux as a chef as a tender morality play of what his own life has become. That may be a comforting thought, because his latest directing effort in essence is comfort food. Not a smorgasbord of delicious edibles, but something that goes down good all the same.

Writer/Director: Jon Favreau
Notable Cast: Jon Favreau, Emjay Anthony, Sofia Vergara, Dustin Hoffman, John Leguizamo, Oliver Platt, Bobby Cannavale, Scarlett Johansson, Robert Downey Jr.

Travis Leamons is one of the Inside Pulse Originals and currently holds the position of Managing Editor at Inside Pulse Movies. He's told that the position is his until he's dead or if "The Boss" can find somebody better. I expect the best and I give the best. Here's the beer. Here's the entertainment. Now have fun. That's an order!