Today's Special (2009)

Watched 'Today's Special' (2009) on Netflix.

It is an American movie involving many Indians in the make.

It tries to be Hollywood but does not even get close. It's closer to a plain Bollywood movie with predictable ending. The one good thing about it is, it is not the usual boy meets girl movie but has a novel theme that’s not at all Bollywood like. 
A chef who revives a dying restaurant.

All of the characters are plain, dull, boring and insipid, except Akbar played by Nasiruddeen Shah.

When your chief protagonist Samir (played by Asif Mandvi) is plain, dull, ordinary.. when there is no strength in his character, nothing to endear him to the audience, you must at least compensate the character with great looks, otherwise he just does not connect with the audience and the attraction (towards him) felt by the woman of the movie looks like a lie, unconvincing to the audience.

I felt sorry for the beautiful Carrie who had to kiss this ordinary looking guy Samir.

The movie doesn't explain why an excellent and accomplished cook like Akbar (Nasir) agrees to serve a B grade restaurant and an ordinary boss like Samir.

Samir's father is an excess. He looks hideous, has over acted, with shouting, all unnecessary lines and unwarranted histrionics. All you viewer do is wait for him to shut up and for the screen to show something else, anything else.
They have gone too far in depicting his foul temper and his disgruntlement.

Samir’s mother too. Totally lacks flavour. Someone you don’t look forward to seeing, and someone you want to go away, soon as she appears. Couldn’t they at least find someone better looking?

The parents could have been made to possess some distinct character - amusing, comical, even tragic or evocative, but they are so plain…

A good movie must make use of every inch of screen space, every minute of screen time and every one of its characters to convey some meaning or purpose or entertainment just like a good architect must make use of every every inch of available space while constructing a building.

The group of old men gathering at the restaurant and their chit chat, too, is a waste of screentime. They could have been made to provide some amusing or curious chatter. It’s the little things that take a movie a long way.
The following lines are examples, but these are delivered by Akbar (played by Nasir)

“Pondicherry,... The only French colony in India.
It's one of the great tragedies of history that the French in India never made it further up north… two of the finest cuisines in the world, the French and the Indian coming together for an epicurean meeting of the minds... Instead we end up getting colonized by the bloody British whose greatest culinary achievement in 2000 years is the fish and chips”

“The shah of Iran visited India once and was heard to remark that eating with a utensil was like making love through an interpreter” - I love this one for I am not a fan of the fork nor spoon.

Do you remember Ranjit Chowdhry? Was a little boy in the old Hindi movie Khatta Meetha and a few others during those Amol Palekar days. I was surprised to see him in this movie, now an old and frail man. Where was he and why did they dig him out now?

He is one of the old men and relates the Tea bag, sugar bag joke. (a restaurant staff when found cutting open the tea bag and pouring its contents into hot water was advised to immerse the bag itself. After sometime, he was found by the same man dipping the sugar packet into the water instead of cutting open the bag). Good joke but delivered poorly, you hardly notice.

There was enough room in the movie for such food talk. Indian cooking is so diverse, there are so many cuisines within the Indian cuisine, so much variety in spices used, so many different methods of processing the same combination of ingredients, stories and anecdotes behind recipes, their medicinal values, vegetarianism,...

The novelty, charm and skill of explaining, describing food and tastes in words is quite something. It is the thing that’s unique to movies abut cooking and makes them interesting.

“You can't tell about the Masala until it's in the oil, the Masala is the Symphony and the oil is the orchestra”

“The dosa texture…, It's the stone...
A griddle has a will of its own,
but with a dosa stone, you can determine the character of the dosa according to your mood”

There are some charming analogies.

“Clove and cinnamon, very opinionated, a little goes a long way”

“Turmeric, the golden spice that makes everything glow. We used to use turmeric to colour the Delhi circus”

“With Indian cooking, the recipe is like a raga. It's just a template. The important thing is the interpretation, the improvisation”

And then there are lines that are not so charming and don’t make much sense.

“Cumin is a saucy wench, gives you great pleasure but she herself is never satisfied” 
“Coriander seed like a young girl walking through a lemon grove by the ocean, what her future holds…”

“A man who measures life, never knows his own measure”

The song kabhi kabhi is playing in Mukesh’s voice when Farida, Samir’s mother meets Akbar in the restaurant kitchen. For some reason, its is so very soothing. Makes the otherwise plain scene, bearable.

Most of the recipes being finished and garnished in the chef's kitchen were vegetarian and that was a mercy. Unlike in Julie and Julia, where huge fowl and ducks are being shown stuffed with filling and stitched together. But that was a brilliant movie otherwise.

A new phrase I learnt from the movie - sous chef, pronounced as soo-shef. An assistant to the master chef, but he is the one that manages the entire kitchen’s operation.

As usual, I noted some beautiful lines.

“Hurry up the garnishing” 
“You can't hurry up a work of art”

“Told your folks about this?”
“I am waiting…”
“For?"
“The last minute”

“People don't know what they want, they know what they have had”

“A person who has been in love knows he has been in love”

My favorite of all lines and the one I completely agree with from my own experience is,

Of Manhattan lights... “In a place with lights like that, any dream can come true”!

#westerncinema