No Reservations feels like the requisite Hollywood date movie. That isn’t saying a whole lot but it is still a relatively sweet, if predictable and overly slick, romance.
Catherine Zeta-Jones plays Kate, a control-freak chef so tightly wound it’s a wonder she doesn’t pop in the steam of her kitchen. Despite her position as reigning queen of the Manhattan foodie set, her killer West Village apartment, and the fact that she looks like Catherine Zeta-Jones, Kate is a sad sack; she does not really exist outside of her job and her employer-ordered therapy (Kate has a temper that boils whenever anyone questions her perfection).
Charming romantic comedy conventions intervene for Kate, however, when her sister dies suddenly, leaving Kate to care for her wide-eyed, mini-bohemian 10-year-old niece Zoe (Abigail Breslin) at the same time that a larger-than-life sous chef, who impossibly seems to be able to cook well and enjoy life, gets a job in Kate’s kitchen. Nick (Aaron Eckhart, doing what almost seems to be a Gérard Depardieu impression for some unknown reason) pushes all of Kate’s buttons and instantly hits it off with Zoe, and thus begins Kate’s transition from uptight head case to romantic comedy lead.
There is clearly nothing here to tax any acting muscles and Eckhart, for one, has proven himself capable of more. Zeta-Jones is looking a bit tired, but is still just fine as a very sad and restrained woman. It is nice to have a strong support cast, too, even if their talents are all completely unnecessary. Folks like Patricia Clarkson and Bob Balaban, as the restaurant owner and psychiatrist respectively, really have no reason to be here save the pay cheque, but they are welcome nonetheless.
For all the times that No Reservations is utterly conventional and predictable, it is kind enough to sidestep the contrived complications that often litter the genre – Zoe is a little girl in mourning, but she isn’t acting like a devil child out to destroy Aunt Kate. (Plus, it helps that Breslin is the most adorable, realistic child actor out there. She would take Dakota Fanning in an act-off match any day.) Even the cookie cutter romance isn’t plagued by wacky, trite misunderstandings to veer it off course.
This is not to say the movie doesn’t take advantage of convenient plot devices – a controlling star chef working at a restaurant with a hands-on and bossy owner defies logic. And while there are numerous problems a single woman working an executive chef’s hours in Manhattan would face by suddenly becoming a parent to a tween girl, finding adequate, accommodating childcare when she has the money to shell out for it is not one of them. Perhaps it comes from changing the locale – Reservations is based on the German comedy Mostly Martha and the finer points may have been more palatable in the original setting.
But even as Reservations kept in many of Martha’s points, it is missing the inherent charm of the original. It is a serviceable enough genre piece, but what prevents it from being more is a lack of wonder or magic to make it truly likeable. Even this year’s earlier foodfest Ratatouille showed more passion, by a cartoon rat no less, for the gourmet than Kate ever does – she seems to cook out of drive, never out of true love. It is funny enough, but not particularly endearing, and it takes more than sappy montages set to music and a jaunty scene involving a bicycle built for three to build up any real feeling for the characters.
Anne Gilbert
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