Sometimes a movie tries to take on too many stories at once. It presents dozens of characters, excessive dilemmas, and divergent story lines that can only try to come together in the end.
What's Cookin', directed by Gurinder Chadha, is a perfect example. It overwhelms the audience with over 40 speaking characters composing four distinct families. The movie jumps from one family to the next, slowly revealing problem after problem. By the end, the film has covered just about every dilemma a dysfunctional family can go through.
The idea behind What's Cookin' is relatively simple - a peek inside four different homes in Los Angeles during the celebration of Thanksgiving. The audience is able to witness how four families with distinct ethnic backgrounds celebrate an American holiday. Chadha, however, feels the need to convolute the plot with myriad over-the-top traumas that distract the audience from the original theme.
Yet another problem is the stereotyping that abounds in each family's Thanksgiving celebration. Is it necessary to assure the audience that African Americans need macaroni and cheese on the Thanksgiving table, or that Asian Americans pick up their KFC drumsticks with chopsticks?
Among the four families there is a rich and successful African-American family, the Williams. Audrey (Alfre Woodard) is a loving mother who is torn between her estranged son and her cheating husband. Audrey wants more than anything to keep the family together, even if it means putting everyone's needs before her own.
The Avila family brings tension to the screen. Mother Elizabeth (Mercedes Ruehl) is separated from her husband of many years, Javier (Victor Rivers), after he is caught philandering with Elizabeth's cousin. Elizabeth wants a nice family Thanksgiving, without Javier. Tensions mount, however, when her son invites him anyway.
One of the more humorous families is the Seeligs. Ruth and Herb (Lainie Kazan and Maury Chaykin, respectively) are hilarious as a Jewish couple trying to come to terms with their daughter's homosexuality. Their daughter Rachel (Kyra Sedgwick) brings her longtime lover Carla (Julianna Marguilies) to Thanksgiving dinner, ensuring a night of awkwardness and trouble.
The fourth family is the Nguyens, who emigrated from Vietnam around 15 years ago. Trinh (Joan Chen) is worried that her children are being overly Americanized. She has reason to fear when she discovers a condom in her daughter's jacket pocket and learns that her son has a gun.
The connection between these four families is only revealed in the end with a "surprise" that is less than satisfactory. In fact, any distinct connection between the film's very different families seems highly unlikely.
To its credit, the film is an amazing culinary experience. The cinematographer is the award-winning Jong Lin (Eat Drink Man Woman) and he does a superb job in capturing the sight, smell, and warmth of the food. You can practically taste it!
If there's one thing this movie truly succeeds in, it's in preparing everyone for the holiday season. Watching the exquisite food being prepared, seeing family members reunited... there's no mistaking it: the holidays are upon us.
