Movie Breakdown: Chef

People are doing traditional-style reviews all over the web, so we decided to try something different.  In each “breakdown” we’ll take a look at what a film’s marketing lead us to believe, how the movie actually played, and then what we learned from it all.  Read on!

The Impression:

Jon Favreau buys a food truck in order to achieve true happiness.

The Reality:

As I sat in the theater watching Chef it was difficult to not notice just how plain and cliche-heavy of a film it is.  In fact, Chef has nothing to offer but a super heart-warming, effortlessly charming story that’s filled with good characters.  That’s it.  How disgustingly lame, right?!  Okay, so none of that is actually terrible, but I point it out only so that I can note how the film’s lack of originality is made up entirely by Jon Favreau’s clear adoration for his little story about a man whose professional failure inadvertently gives him a shot a better life.  Favreau gives the film an infectious amount of energy, and I don’t think it would work anywhere near as well as it does without his enthusiasm.  Good on him.

I say reward Favreau’s love for Chef by seeing it.

The Lesson:

Nothing beats a quality feel-good story.