A sous chef is forced to take a job at a hostel for undocumented minors in this feel-good drama with a white-savior problem.
Popular French cinema isn’t the most sophisticated when it comes to telling stories about race relations. It tends to fall back on ethnic stereotypes for laughs and seems to cater to viewers who might find “Green Book,” which has been criticized as tone deaf, to be a touching portrait of cross-cultural redemption. “Kitchen Brigade,” a feel-good drama set in a hostel for undocumented minors — with a kick of cooking-competition-show excitement — is far from the biggest offense to emerge from the country, but it doesn’t break the mold either.
The director Louis-Julien Petit has made a career out of social-justice-oriented movies, tackling issues like workplace exploitation and the plight of homeless women through the lens of the people on-the-ground who just won’t take it anymore.
In “Kitchen Brigade,” Cathy Marie (Audrey Lamy), an imperious white sous chef, eventually becomes one such angry civilian, but it takes the kindness and vulnerability of the young people to get her off her high horse.
Forced out of necessity to take a job as the hostel’s live-in cook, Cathy Marie insists on maintaining the standards of a high-end establishment, which means she’ll need help. She gets it in the form of the hostel’s residents: young men with little to no cooking skills who come primarily from Africa and Southeast Asia. Cue the training process, with Cathy Marie barking orders like a coach in a sports movie, and some minor tensions with an angsty teenager who turns out to be a softy. Learning the tenets of French cuisine works as a metaphor for assimilation into French society, and the charismatic kids assimilate with glee.
The real problem, however, is that the boys will be turned out of the country when they turn 18 unless they secure a way to stay, like a youth soccer contract or enrollment in a vocational school. That’s not so easy, it turns out, which galvanizes Cathy Marie into action.
“Kitchen Brigade” is a white-savior story par excellence, though at least it’s not difficult to swallow — the young people are lovely, and so is the food.
Kitchen Brigade
Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 37 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on Apple TV, Vudu and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators.
Source: Movies - nytimes.com
