{"id":301,"date":"2017-05-06T07:27:22","date_gmt":"2017-05-06T07:27:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/2017\/05\/06\/httptheblurb-com-aureviewsburnt-movie-review\/"},"modified":"2017-05-06T07:27:22","modified_gmt":"2017-05-06T07:27:22","slug":"httptheblurb-com-aureviewsburnt-movie-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/httptheblurb-com-aureviewsburnt-movie-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Burnt – movie review"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chocolat, No Reservations, Soul Kitchen, Big Night, Babette\u2019s Feast, Like Water for Chocolate, The Hundred Foot Journey, Eat Drink Man Woman, Ratatouille<\/i> \u2013 just some of the films about food that have bombarded us. Food has become a lifestyle obsession, rather than the fuel it was considered to be a few decades ago. Television schedules have umpteen variations of cookery shows, the kitchen is the centre of the home, farmers markets abound, cookbooks are the new coffee table tomes and social media entices people to new pop up venues. Chefs are regarded as rock stars and behave accordingly. I am no foodie, although some of the dishes served up in Burnt<\/i> look like works of art. With a heavy hitting cast, this film tries to combine a Gordon Ramsay approach to preparation with a thrilling and dangerous back-story.<\/p>\n

\"Burnt-01\"Chef Adam Jones (Bradley Cooper) had it all \u2013 and lost it by drinking and snorting and shooting up too much.\u00a0 The former enfant terrible of the Paris restaurant scene had earned two Michelin stars and only ever cared about the thrill of creating explosions of taste. Then he shot through leaving large-scale debts to the sorts of people who you don\u2019t want to owe money to. After three years shucking oysters \u2013 1,000,000 in all \u2013 he’s now ready to attempt to make a big comeback; not in Paris mind you, but in London. He remains supremely self confident and narcissistic. To land his own kitchen and that third elusive star, Jones will need to leave his bad habits behind and get the best of the best on his side, including beautiful single mum Helene (Sienna Miller).<\/p>\n

So, in short, Burnt<\/i> is about second chances. Director John Wells was attracted to Steven Knight’s (Dirty Pretty Things, Eastern Promises, Locke, The Hundred Foot Journey<\/i>) screenplay partly because of the ever growing foodie culture and also because it was a look inside the unique and combative world of restaurateurs. As creator, writer and producer of such seminal US TV series such as ER<\/i> and The West Wing<\/i>, Wells insisted on accurately portraying the world in which the drama is set. Shooting ER<\/i>, they had four medics on set all day every day, and the non speaking cast members were all medical staff, so whatever was being done around cast members was appropriate to the scene. On The West Wing<\/i>, they were surrounded by people involved in high-end politics, on the writing team and on the set.<\/p>\n

Wells believes London is the world capital of fine dining. \u201cBeing able to shoot in top restaurants and kitchens, like Michel Roux’s \u2026 at the Langham Hotel and the Delaunay, a recent Corbijn King restaurant, was a bonus, adding to the authenticity on screen,\u201d he says. Added to that is the involvement of a Michelin star chef, in this case Marcus Wareing, who is also a presenter on BBC TV\u2019s Master Chef<\/i>. As it turned out, during the shooting of the cooking scenes the cast and crew were virtually running a top-end kitchen. The non-speaking cast members were all trained chefs. Not that it is anything new, but I understand why they build the story around a broken man on a mission. It certainly adds a layer of intrigue to work with such a flawed creature who isn\u2019t immediately likeable or sound.<\/p>\n