Not enough–and too much

COOPER. Acts up a storm to vivify his character’s deep pain and colossal petulance.

Cooking shows are very popular on TV, so films about chefs and less stellar cooks have found favor with moviegoers, as well.

This season, another film about a brilliant culinary artist and maverick has been made—“Burnt,” starring Bradley Cooper as a troubled and temperamental chef who makes it big in Paris, but is brought down by an expensive and ruinous drug addiction, which is compounded by huge ego problems!

Years later, the burnt-out chef, Adam Jones, has atoned for his sins and wants to stage a big comeback. However, his pithy penchant for rubbing people the wrong way still asserts itself much too often, so additional lessons clearly have to be learned.

Seen as a whole, however, “Burnt,” written by Steven Knight and John Wells, ends up feeling like too much fuss and bother is being made out of insufficient conflict.

Yes, chefs today are regarded as larger-than-life artists whose talents and egos are virtually “operatic” in their full display— but, in this instance, it’s too much ado about too little actual dramatic significance and resonance.

Thus, Cooper may act up a storm to vivify his hugely conflicted character’s deep pain and colossal petulance, but it’s both not enough and too much—because the conflict that it struggles to depict has a hollow core.

On the plus side, the culinary creations that the film showcases are impressive and yummy to behold. We also appreciated the director’s ability to make cooking look and feel intensely physical, urgent and dramatic! In lesser hands, the film’s many kitchen scenes would have dribbled off into rote and repetition, but Wells stages them with impressive versatility, flash and flair.

All told, however, these effectively iridescent goodies and graces weren’t enough to make us feel cinematically sated and “solved.”