Haute Cuisine
Director: Christian Vincent
Cast: Catherine Frot, Arthur Dupont, Jean d'Ornesson, Hippolyte Girardot, Arly Jover, Brice Fournier
Rating: (M)
3 stars (out of 5)
We learn early on in Haute Cuisine (Rialto) that Hortense Laborie (Catherine Frot) is a formidable cook when she outlines a celebratory menu which includes ducks that she has force fed herself: when it comes to flavour profiles nothing will stand in her way.
At first sight, she seems a pleasant, slightly dowdy French housewife, so we are as perplexed as she seems to be when she is summoned to the Elyse Palace to run the kitchen tasked with providing nice lunches for the French President and any guests he may have.
It turns out that she has been running a cooking school in the Perigord region teaching foreigners regional specialties.
As Perigord is the premier truffle and duck liver pate region of France the amusement this affords the male chefs in the main kitchen can only really be explained by good-old male arrogance.
But Hortense is not alone. She has been seconded a sympathetic pastry chef Nicolas (Arthur Dupont) and together they whip up a storm of good old-fashioned home-style cooking.
Though being French their idea of home-style cooking is not likely to match any Kiwi childhood memories you or I have.
Best thing: You will be wanting to loosen your belt after watching this as the food on screen looks so luscious and calorific.
Worst thing: Hortense is based on a real person (Daniele Delpeuch) and the episodic structure of being true to her life drains the screenplay of any real drama.
See it with: A booking for somewhere nice afterwards.
