aberdyn1832 This is definitely one of my top ten movies ever!Ten years after a band of friends lost contact (not all of them), and one of them has become a TV celebrity, they all meet again for a dinner which reveals all the hidden feelings they had.Directing, set, acting, music... everything is just brilliant and in place. But most of all, the dialogs are fantastic. They slowly reveal the personality of each character and they also uncover what happened ten years before between those friends, without narrating what happened (with only one slight exception). Everything is fluid and smooth, the characters seem extremely real with their history, their feelings (past and present), their hopes and their past disappointments.A must-see movie!

writers_reign This was the first collaboration of the great writer-actor team of Agnes Jaoui and Jean-Pierre Bacri; it was a huge success on the stage and paved the way for their second play-and-subsequent-film Un Air de famille after which they concentrated on writing directly for the screen (On Connait le chanson, Smoking/No Smoking, and Le Gout des autres and Comme une Image which Jaoui also, of course, directed. Cuisine is now available on DVD and very welcome it is. All the themes of the duo - the small group as microcosm, the flawed relationships, long-savoured resentments, etc - are in evidence from the first and if, like Francis Veber in another context, they keep making the same movies this is no problem because like Veber they keep ringing the changes and finding different ways to extract new wine from old bottles. Like Une air de famille the setting - in this case a kitchen - is one associated with food and only the relationships are different; the kitchen is in the home of a married couple, Zabou Breitman and Sam Karman, who have given a temporary roof to a friend, Jean-Pierre Bacri and have invited another friend - arguably we could call him The Man Who Didn't Come To Dinner as he remains off-camera - who, in the intervening decade since they saw him last has become a TV personality. Also on hand is Zabou's brother, Jean-Pierre Darroussin and HIS unseen girlfriend and finally Agnes Jaoui, the wife of a journalist. Between them these five explore the Human Condition in all its manifestations and contribute the kind of high quality acting we would expect given their respective track records. It's also interesting to note that three out of the five went on to direct films; apart from Jaoui herself Zabou wrote, directed and appeared in the brilliant Se Souvenirs des belles choses and Sam Karman weighed in with Un Petite semaine. This is one to relish.

Varboro Almost was said by yamaelle, but I didn't like this movie, and I'll say why, this will answer, at least partly to the question 'why is this movie so low-rated ?'... the whole action is in a kitchen. OK, making a movie is a good way to promote an play, but is not enough. The reference adaptation of a french play is "le père noel". This is a postulat, but seems realistic. Here we have some people coming and going in the kitchen, as JP Bacri is the main character, as he is the one who stays the longer. But alas, he is misanthropic, depressing and asocial, so there is no rythm. The dynamic ones, Sam and Martine just make appearances. And the wondrous JP Darroussin and Agnès Jaoui have a supporting play. this is not enough. Le père Noel uses different stages ( the elevator, the drugstore, the café) for adding to the scene play, not this one. I found it fun once, because of JP Darroussin and JP Bacri, but I got bored very quickly ( Sorry for my bad english). Well. It was no fun for me, and I gave it a 4. Both JP Darroussin and JP Bacri are better in other comedies (le goût des autres,un air de famille, and above all mes meilleurs copains) Well. for me it is worth for fans of french play adaptations, but one can skip this one and seek for "mes meilleurs copains" or "un air de famille" instead

yamaelle "Cuisine et dépendances" used to be a play in the early '90s, and was turned into a movie a few years later. In fact, it's the first movie the excellent duo Bacri/Jaoui (" On connait la chanson", "Un air de famille",... and the upcomming "Le gout des autres" ) collaborated to. It's a dinner of 'retrouvailles' between used-to-be-friends, who haven't seen each other for 10 years.There is the couple welcoming the dinner (Sam Kermann + Zabou )with a friend (Jean-Pierre Bacri ), who has begged - 2 months ago - for a 2 weeks hospitality. As usual, his character is depressive, bad-tempered, jealous and in bad mood. The wife's brother (Jean-Pierre Daroussin), who spends his time losing money in poker, came with 'his new girlfriend Marilyn he met 4 days ago in a disco' to borrow money from her sister. There finally are the real guests: a journalist (Agnes Jaoui) and her husband, a very popular TV star.The real success of this movie is that we don't see the dinner itself, but people succeeding in the kitchen during all the evening, chatting, revealing us how the dinner is happening, but getting more and more excited. In fact, the movie is so well done that no actors are playing the Marilyn and the TV star characters, without any confusion in the coherence of the story (they're not supposed to be in the kitchen). As in "Un air de famille", the soiree degenerates into a battlefield with people quarelling all around, evacuating their old rancors.The confrontation between people who have been very close, and then separated for 10 years, having evoluted in differently is well described - and so fun! I don't understand why the average note is around 5 (I gave a strong 8), because it's a real good movie you can enjoy a lot of times ( story, excellent acting, fun score... ). Unfortunately, it's a french movie, meaning that you have to understand well french to really take advantage of the dialogues. Anyway, if you liked that one, look for "Un air de famille", "Kennedy et moi"... in fact every movie of Bacri/Jaoui.