Haute Cuisine

2013
6.4| 1h35m| PG-13| en
Details

The story of Danièle Delpeuch and how she was appointed as the private chef for François Mitterrand.

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Also starring Jean d'Ormesson

Reviews

Flyerplesys Perfectly adorable
SpunkySelfTwitter It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.
Humaira Grant It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.
Joanna Mccarty Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.
Beverly Dame The French love food. They talk about what to have for lunch at breakfast and what to have for dinner at lunch. "Haute Cuisine" took me back to Paris and that love for food. Mlle. Frot was a wonderful chef and the food produced by someone (WHO???) was spectacular. Savoy cabbage stuffed with salmon. Oh my.The only jarring note was the actor who played "Le President." Too old to be Mitterand.I'll watch this again to capture her recipe for the salad dressing and the name of the cookbook Le President loved.BTW is she still alive and cooking?
tecnodata I'm a bit surprised to find myself in disagreement with other reviewers but this movie is a) actually boring b) the actress, although a good professional, is actually that: a soulless professional c) the " president" is totally miscast d) even the recipes, in their farfetchedness, are completely uninteresting. The rhythm of the gags is repetitive, no plot, no drama. Just the usual surprised, smiling faces of the ( supposedly) typical Frenchmen when they hear yet another recipe declaimed by a loving, caring chef. One of the few films that I didn't finish watching and that can be easily forgotten. I'm sure that other people might disagree and I accept that but, sorry, that's my opinion.
shawneofthedead Have you ever caught yourself planning where to have dinner… even while you're eating lunch? Singapore, as all who live here know very well, is a nation obsessed with good food. As far as humanly possible, many of us live to eat, rather than eat to live. So it's easy to see how a treat like Haute Cuisine – a thoroughly French film that greatly reveres the art and mastery of cooking – might hit the spot with local audiences.No-nonsense, straight-talking Hortense Laborie (Catherine Frot) – inspired by the real-life Danièle Mazet-Delpeuch – runs her own truffle farm in the French countryside. One day, she's rushed down to Paris to meet a potential employer: the President of France (Jean d'Ormesson), who's modelled after François Mitterrand. With the help of her sous-chef Nicolas (Arthur Dupont), Hortense prepares culinary feasts for a man who hankers after the down-to-earth home cooking of his childhood, even as she's forced to deal with politics and jealousy in the kitchens and corridors of the Élysée Palace.As a main course, Haute Cuisine serves up much for discerning movie- goers to savour. Hortense emerges as a formidable presence, her strength of character shining through her battles with the unwelcoming men in charge of the Palace's main kitchen. (Mazet-Delpeuch was the first female chef to serve in the Palace.) Her conspiratorial friendships with Nicolas and Jean-Marc Luchet (Jean-Marc Roulot), the President's maître d, are charmingly developed and effectively juxtaposed with her year-long sojourn in Antarctica spent cooking for a very different set of consumers. The film is beautifully shot, making good use of its access to the Palace grounds and lingering lovingly over Hortense's culinary masterpieces.Just don't expect to have your mind blown or your tastebuds completely tantalised. This is a competent, solidly-made film, but it trades a sense of dramatic urgency for its more gastronomic delights. Hortense's creations will have you salivating in your seat, rich and clearly delicious. Her few face-to-face meetings with the President, however, are sweet and understated rather than the stuff of history. Ultimately, Haute Cuisine is the cinematic equivalent of a good, solid meal – satisfying but not necessarily something to shout from the roof-tops about.
johann_tor The spoiler revealed in this review is that there is no dramatic tension whatsoever in this work.This was a revoltingly bad movie. The subject matter ought to make this an easy movie to watch, with opportunities to showcase haute cuisine in a lavish environment, while celebrating some interesting characters. The incompetence of the direction, however, makes this film a slog to get through. First off, the story is told via a halting and awkward flashback device. There is absolutely no dramatic reason for that and the rhythm of the film suffers greatly for it. It only serves the need to provide some variation in the visuals (or the desire of the producers to travel to Antarctica) and to introduce a few more totally throwaway characters. Second, and more important, the movie fails spectacularly at elevating what is by rights something quite trivial - the non-problems of a chef working for a rarefied clientèle - into something worthy of a dramatic recreation. Whenever something that vaguely looks like an obstacle is introduced, the situation is immediately resolved to the protagonist's favor, although she will continue to pout and complain and be exhausted by it. The director also makes some token efforts at humor, but they are vague and they only underline the lack of anything serious to distract you from. Even in the end, when the protagonist resigns from her post, she can offer no reason for it. I can only presume that she was as bored by what happened in the previous two hours as I.