Rob Haley, an up-and-coming chef and restaurateur in London, is grief-stricken when he loses his wife. With encouragement from his infamous friend and real life TV Chef Gordon Ramsay, Rob decides to spice up his life by turning a run-down country pub into a gourmet restaurant. His food catches the eye - and taste buds - of beautiful American food critic Kate Templeton and they soon both write a recipe for love that leaves both their hearts - and their stomachs - in full.
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I wanted to and expected to enjoy this but its basically Britain's equivalent to a Lifetime movie with an absolutely unimaginative story, flat romance, bland characters and filled with every romantic comedy movie cliché going.I was actually surprised by how, well not bad exactly -because the acting and production is fine but just unoriginal this was. I did enjoy the leads (Dougray Scott & Claire Forlani) but their romance was still pretty uninspiring. Scott plays a successful chef and restaurateur in London who loses his zest for cooking after his wife dies in a car accident. With encouragement from friends (including a cameo from Gordon Ramsey) he buys a country pub and turns it into a gourmet restaurant. Forlani is a food critique and his mousse catches her eye. 6/28/14
No it's not perfect, but something Love's Kitchen has that so many movies don't have these days is heart... and a superb performance on the part of Simon Callow, who alone is worth seeing the film for. I was thinking about his character for days afterward, chuckling.When you consider all the things Love's Kitchen (formerly -- and I believe, superiorly titled No Ordinary Trifle), had working against it (namely the budget -- 'twas A LOT to accomplish for a mere $1M), naysayers should really cut first time writer/director Mr. Hacking some slack. It's a sweet little movie which epicureans in particular will find themselves salivating over on occasion. I will say it's odd to me that there wasn't more chemistry between the leads (they're married I believe), but individually I liked each of them fine (Dougray Scott more than Claire Forlani, but admittedly, I am a heterosexual female) and had no trouble swallowing that these two beautiful people might fall for each other -- though I'd have liked to have seen a bit more of that process so that it felt more organic/less contrived (which is not a unique problem in the genre).In any case, anyone who has a soft spot for feel good romantic comedies will certainly enjoy Love's Kitchen. For my money, it's a FAR CRY above the 27 Dresses type schlock that Hollywood turns out in this arena time and time again. For that alone, I give everyone involved a lot of credit! And lastly -- why does everyone hate on Gordon Ramsay? It's a cameo part perfect for a famous chef at the top of his game which any new director would be a fool not to seize upon!
The screenplay is a lukewarm work just like all the actors in this movie, very loose, not quite convincing. The female food critic looked pretty forced and not convincing at all. The editing of this movie was also not quite good since there are several transit scenes just felt incomplete and abrupt.The major problem of this movie is that the main character who played the role as an ingenious chef, again, very unconvincing, showing shortage of any superior cooking technique and basic sanitary alertness. Arranging and putting the final touch of the decoration for the food presentation, he combed his hairs, wiped his neck with the same hand that touched the food, yuck! Ever heard of cross-contamination? I was worried that he might pick his nose and scratch his crotch or his behind, then touch the food again. This is the major reason that I don't like any food that obviously was handled and touched by hands, especially if there were some obvious arrangement of the food on the plate, some greens or flowers? Nowadays, it seems every food, especially the food at outrageous prices, would be arranged by hands, French, Italian, Japanese, Chinese...lot of so-called "cuisine" are using hands to touch, arrange, re-arrange the looks on the plates. Yack! And this chef, touched food and combed his hairs and wiped his neck at the same time. His greatness in food never showed clearly only showed that he could do some magical "Trifle", in other words, a pastry chef? Lot of scenes in this lukewarm romance comedy are just pretentious and stupid. Highly unlikely realistic.Watchable, but not great at all.
As a foodie rom-com, it checks all the boxes. The chemistry between the leads is unsurprisingly good, the secondary romance isn't a major storyline but does help develop those characters, there are some real laugh-out-loud scenes.That said, rom-coms are often much of a muchness, and this isn't quite good enough (to me) to be best in class.The American title for this film isn't an improvement on 'No Ordinary Trifle', which is the signature dish of the male lead. The reactions of everybody who eats the eponymous dish are varied, but all the actors made me hungry, which is more than I can say for most non-fictional food television.
