Cinema Scholars reviews Christoffer Boe’s culinary drama A Taste Of Hunger, starring Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Katrine Greis-Rosenthal. Magnolia Pictures will release A Taste Of Hunger in theaters and on-demand on January 28, 2022.
Introduction
Even before Julia Child first uttered, “Bon Appetite,” on her famous culinary series, audiences have been drawn to food culture. After all, food serves as one of the great common denominators. It’s also a source of bonding for people and different cultures. Some look to culinary entertainment as straightforward instruction. Others simply enjoy the pomp and circumstance of witnessing a chef concoct imaginative and mouth-watering dishes from raw ingredients, even when they can’t taste it.
In the cinematic universe, stories that revolve around meals or a particular delicacy have always occupied a beloved niche. The average movie-goer might easily name a few food-centric films that are funny or heartwarming. Yet, it’s much more challenging to recall a film that uses culinary context for drama or intrigue.
Food is typically portrayed as a source of comfort or familiarity in movies. Occasionally that trope gets turned on its head when cuisine is the source of the strife. In the new drama A Taste Of Hunger, director Christoffer Boe does just that by using the high-stakes context of a chef’s quest for the coveted Michelin star to unpack a tumultuous romance.
Premise
Carsten (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) and Maggie (Katrine Greis-Rosenthal) are rising stars in Copenhagen’s fine-dining world, and the optics are great. They have an up-and-coming restaurant, a loving marriage, and two beautiful children. With Maggie’s business prowess and Carsten’s talent in the kitchen, the power couple has set their sights squarely on the ultimate prize, a prestigious star in the revered Michelin Guide.
When a snafu occurs on the night they may-or-may-not have been visited by an anonymous Michelin envoy, Maggie goes on a wild-goose chase throughout the city’s finest restaurants with the hope of finagling a second chance with their clandestine judge.
In a strange twist that night, Maggie also intercepts a mysterious message meant for her husband that questions her devotion. Now, amid her desperate late-night odyssey, Maggie also faces some difficult truths about herself as well as her personal relationship with her life/business partner.
Analysis
At the onset of A Taste Of Hunger, there are gorgeous montages of food prep that are as sumptuous to one’s eye as they presumably are to one’s palate. A succession of dazzling plates is delivered by a legion of black-clad servers carefully choreographed like Busby Berkeley food porn.
Adding to the spectacle, the protagonists’ eatery features a kitchen that is on full display for its patrons. Like a stage of sorts for the busy chefs performing to the delight of their ardent (and ravenous) audience.
Though the food pageantry cools off after the first act, Boe keeps the culinary elements consistent throughout A Taste Of Hunger. Chapter markers like “sweet”, “fat”, “heat”, and “salt” appear to loom over the vibrant cityscape, helping outline the narrative while cleverly tying in the gastronomical theme.
Further Discussion
The central story of Maggie’s quest unfolds over the course of a single night, however, a dual narrative emerges through a series of flashbacks that expands the couple’s backstory. We learn more about Maggie and Carsten’s relationship and past, and the details of her motivation are better explained.
As Maggie makes her way across the city on a mission to salvage her business as well as her personal life, a tour through some of Copenhagen’s finest eateries and charming locales is a dazzling and unexpected treat.
Visually, the slick aesthetic of A Taste Of Hunger is accentuated by pops of vibrant lighting in nearly every scene. Fitting for a film that revolves around sensory stimulation. From the subtle to the overt, Boe’s calculated use of bright primary and neon vignettes helps to cultivate a beautiful yet edgy feel that matches the sophisticated world the characters move within.
Performances
No stranger to high-stakes drama, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Game Of Thrones) plays Carsten with the laser focus of a determined competitor. His guileless take on the ambitious chef aptly conveys the one-track mind of a success-obsessed person while also acknowledging that this particular downfall isn’t always malicious. Rather, Coster-Waldau’s honest, tempered performance nicely allows for his character’s evolution and eventual realization of his shortcomings.
Coster-Waldau may have the GOT star power, but A Taste Of Hunger belongs to Katrine Greis-Rosenthal as Maggie. As her character juggles career, family, and even a health scare, Greis-Rosenthal ably communicates Maggie’s inner strife and complicated emotions. Her character isn’t perfect, but Greis-Rosenthal’s nuanced portrayal of the complex female lead helps make her character’s questionable choices relatable.
Conclusion
Despite the culinary context, A Taste Of Hunger is a rather simple story of the ups and downs of romantic relationships when ego and miscommunication come into play. The difference between this and other similar tales lies with Boe’s intricate reveals and non-linear style of storytelling. The focus on an immediate drama with timeline shifts that fill in the blanks makes for an enthralling take on an age-old narrative with strong, but flawed characters.
A Taste Of Hunger is a film that takes itself very seriously (sometimes too seriously) with nary a wink or a nudge in another direction. From kitchen tantrums, a lost child scare, and even a super-dark bargain by a desperate Maggie, Boe never leans away from the weight of the somewhat tragic and melodramatic story. Though a final epilogue adds just the right amount of endearment to balance out the general pall, straightforward drama and intrigue permeate every frame of this uniquely palatable mediation on human nature.
Magnolia Pictures will release A Taste Of Hunger in theaters and on-demand on January 28, 2022.
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