| Overall Grade: |
B |
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| Story: |
B |
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| Acting: |
B+ |
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| Direction: |
C+ |
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| Visuals: |
B |
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Charming and pleasant, but not a home run
by Rob L (movies profile)
Nov 19, 2007
17
of
23 people found this review helpful
This movie has a bunch of nice things going for it: it's sweet, charming, romantic, nice, funny at times, there's a lot of truth to it. But ultimately I thought it was not completely satisfying.
Plot basics: Kate (Catherine Zeta-Jones) is a superstar chef in New York City without much of a personal/social life. All her passion and energy are channeled into her work. This changes, as her sister is killed in a vehicle crash, leaving a young daughter Zoe (Abigail Breslin) whom Kate, as the only other relative, must care for.
The restaurant that employs Kate then hires Nick (Aaron Eckhart), also a highly talented chef, as the "sou chef". (I think that sorta means second-in-command. You'll probably understand some of the technical points of the movie better if you're familiar with the inner workings of restaurants and/or with gourmet cuisine.) Nick is more of a free spirit. Kate sees him as a threat to her position, but he forms a friendship with Zoe. Eventually he stirs up some romance with Kate.
It's a likable movie, but I wanted to like it even more, so I'm about to explain why I didn't give it an A (rather than why I didn't give it a C, D or F).
One clue is the overuse of music. I enjoy music in movies, but a lot of scenes in No Reservations are too much like music videos. It seems the movie leans on music a little too much, to make up for the gaps in the characters and the story.
We never really know enough about who our heroine is, what she's about, what makes her tick. At one point, Kate says, "This kitchen is who I am." Nick replies, "No, it's only a small part of who you are." Well, that's pretty much most of what we're given in the movie.
Does Kate need to learn not to be such a temperamental control freak, or is it rather that she needs to accept herself as a temperamental control freak? Just as importantly, what made her that way in the first place? Her therapist asks her about that, but she never answers.
Meanwhile, Zoe's character is too much defined by her sadness over her mother's death.
Having a main character who didn't wear her emotions on her sleeve worked in "The Queen". For Elizabeth II (Helen Mirren), being a cold-seeming, hard-to-get-to-know control freak was an occupational hazard. That movie helped the viewer understand and appreciate her as a person, but then again, that was the main agenda of the whole movie. NR has a lot more on its plate (too good a pun to resist).
There's not an encountering-the-deer moment for Kate in NR.
It might have been more interesting and entertaining if the sister had been one of the main characters, but of course, she dies in the first act. Several of the other supporting characters are under-explored as well: the divorced father-neighbor who wants to date Kate, the restaurant manager, the pregnant kitchen assistant, the semi-slutty waitress. Any of them might've had possibilities, but none gets to run with the ball.
To me, the characters have about as much trouble connecting with the audience as they do with each other. NR is being promoted as a bright, feel-good, romantic comedy. But there's too much iciness in Kate's character, too much sadness--almost bitterness--in Zoe's character, for too much of the movie, for it to completely succeed in that regard.
NR has no violence, little or no profanity, no sex, no nudity. The PG rating is mainly because some of the smooching scenes get a little intense--but even then, it's still just smooching. What's interesting, though, is that this movie has really little or no appeal for children or pre-teens--despite Breslin being in it. Often PG means it's a 'family' movie, that is, one targeted to get children to get their parents to take them to it.
It's refreshing to see a clean movie that's not a kiddie movie. From a marketing standpoint, however, it might have made sense to spice it up a little and go for the PG-13. I would liked at least a little cheesecake from Z-J, but maybe that's just me.
I may have emphasized the movie's flaws too much. Heck, if you're in the right mood for it, No Reservations can be a pleasant time at the movies. But to me, it wasn't excellent, and Kate herself wouldn't settle for less than excellence. |
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