A husband and wife pour everything into their restaurant in a quest for a Michelin star, heedless of the other dimensions of their lives.
In the Danish drama “A Taste of Hunger” infidelity and unyielding ambition threaten to derail the relationship between a married couple of restaurateurs.
The kitchen at the heart of the Danish drama “A Taste of Hunger” has none of the warmth of home cooking or jovial dinner parties. Cold blue lights bear down on the restaurant workers as they tend to dressed oysters and fermented lemons. The restaurant, called Malus, in reference to the genus for apples, the original forbidden fruit, seems designed with a minimalism that borders on the brutal.
Malus belongs to Carsten (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) and Maggie (Katrine Greis-Rosenthal), a married couple whose dream is to earn a Michelin star. The movie follows their romance in flashbacks, showing the early sweetness that prevailed before ambition infused their relationship with bitterness.
In present-day sequences, the couple faces a crisis after a man they believe to be a Michelin critic is served a spoiled ingredient at their restaurant. Carsten is the head chef at Malus, and Maggie has fallen into a support role, raising their children and managing business. And it is Maggie who makes it her goal to track down the disappointed diner, determined to secure a second shot at a starred review. But Maggie’s quest is complicated by the emergence of Frederik (Charlie Gustafsson), a man with whom she once had an affair. Sensing the couple’s fragility, Frederik is determined to twist their crisis to his benefit.
The director Christoffer Boe works to balance the story’s overripe dramatics with images that remain cool even in the heat of the moment. He shows Copenhagen’s spare architecture and the restaurant’s near-medical sterility, emphasizing the geometric order of the world that Carsten and Maggie wreak havoc upon. The effect is a movie that resembles nothing so much as the centerpiece of the Malus menu — a hot dog made with elevated ingredients.
A Taste of Hunger
Not rated. In Danish, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 44 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on Apple TV, Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators.
Source: Movies - nytimes.com
