On the heels of FX’s red-hot restaurant nightmare The Bear, any projects set in this world will no doubt be compared for years to come. Such is the case for writer/director Alonso Ruizpalacios drama, La Cocina, which debuted at 2024’s Berlinale International Film Festival. Running over two hours in length, La Cocina has lofty ambitions, and a hell of a lot to say about the American dream, the immigrant experience, and the struggle to stay afloat in the working class. Visually speaking, the cinematography from Juan Pablo Ramirez stuns, and the performances are equally excellent. Despite being set in a madcap kitchen in Times Square, New York, La Cocina could have been set anywhere and still push its messaging to the places it was trying to go.
Ruizpalacios takes an interesting route in setting up the story, with much of the first hour coming across as more of a vignette-style than any form of a true narrative. A young immigrant girl struggles to find her way to the prestigious kitchen; her experience is portrayed frequently in blurred asides to emphasize her lack of understanding. She lies about her identity just to work a day at The Grill, pleading with a condescending and obviously racist boss. Assumingely, we will follow this girl for the entire feature, but in the middle of her interview, a big bombshell occurs. Nearly nine-hundred dollars has gone missing from the registers. Grimy owner Rashid (Oded Fehr) does not want the police involved, but a confession instead.
As the film unfolds, focus shifts to young Mexican cook, Pedro (Raul Briones), and American waitress, Julia (Rooney Mara), both of whom work at The Grill. We learn that Julia is dead set on having an abortion early on—Pedro desperately tries to convince her to keep the baby, as well as to finally commit to him. Their relationship comes with some interesting takeaways, and the short-staffed kitchen swirling around it do not make matters any easier. Ruizpalacios spends time actually setting up what Pedro and Julia have between them, including an intimate blue-tinged sexual scene in a stock room.
What works decidedly less is the shouting and screaming of the frantic kitchen crew, often going off on tangents about licking balls like raspberries, or the executive chef constantly threating Pedro with strikes that will see him booted from The Grill altogether. The middle section of the film feels bloated, as random characters ramble on about their own American dreams. Alonso Ruizpalacios’s points are important, but lack any sense of subtlety whatsoever.
La Cocina overflows with ideas, so much so that it frequently stumbles over its own footing on the way to say them. One thing never lacking are the acting performances. Raul Briones in particular absolutely steals the show—in the film’s climax, Pedro explodes. He has been holding onto this anger all along, and seeing Pedro pushed to his tragic limits presents the best scene of the entire movie. If La Cocina had chosen either to focus entirely on the immigrant experience, the kitchen mayhem, or the relationship struggles of an intriguing couple rather than spreading itself so thinly, it could have potential to be one of the best movies of the year. Instead, La Cocina is simply a well made movie overflowing with ideas that fail to become a fully realized whole.
La Cocina screened at 2024’s Berlinale International Film Festival.
