It’s an admirably spiky little thing, diverging from its apparent rom-com/family reunion beginnings into something altogether darker, a contrasting layer of sharp lemon under the sweet meringue if you will. So handsome Gallic chef Jacques arrives in London looking for a job and his biological father, conveniently finds both in the same restaurant and when he’s offered a flat-sitting arrangement, meets an intriguing young woman Stella who is living one floor down.
But nothing is quite as easy as that, right down to the rain that pours as Jacques disembarks at St Pancras. Though clearly talented in the kitchen, his training is not so much the cordon bleu he claims as convict cuisine and Stella’s reticence is rooted in deep emotional problems that manifests in bulimia. The film builds to a trickily weighted climactic scene where Nico Rogner’s highly charismatic Frenchman decides to help Brealey’s superbly brittle Stella by cooking her the best meal she’s ever had and essentially forcing her to eat it…
