The Movie Chef - Nikola Kalapasev

Chef is probably one of my favorite movies of all time, and not because of the screenplay or writing, because I've found so many similarities in myself and the characters that it almost seems like this could have been an alternate version to the life I live today. Chef follows the story of a guy named carl casper, who is a hard working head chef at a nice restaurant who is divorced and has a son. [Spoilers ahead] The movie then transitions into a more melancholy state, where chef Casper has just been fired from his job as head chef after getting into a dispute with well known food critic. Chef Casper then goes into a depression, but during this time he doesn't lose his passion for his craft of cooking wonderfully delicious and aesthetically pleasing food. The turning point is when Caspers' son tries a cubano sandwich and tells his dad that it was one of the best sandwiches he's ever had. The movie then springs into an upward march, where chef Casper begins an expedition to launch and manage a food truck. After hiring cooks that he was close with from his previous job, they perfect the cubano recipe, and begin their food truck journey. After breaking several destination promises, chef Casper has a genius idea to go cross country with the food truck and his son. His son then began managing the social media and marketing for the food truck as they traveled across the country, and it instantly became viral. The movie ends with chef casper opening his own restaurant, remarrying his ex-wife, rekindling the relationship with his son, and being as successful as he could have ever dreamed. The beauty in this movie isn't the cheesy happy ending, or the mediocre dialogue, its the fact that through food and culinary expertise he rebuilt the relationships that he had lost in the past and became a better person working on his own. A large reason chef casper wasn't happy with his previous job as head chef, was the lack of originality on the menu and the resistance from the restaurant owner to make any changes to the menu. This shows that through the lack of creative outlet was almost like a prison for Casper making it impossible to transcend any barriers preconceived. Through a creative outlet he was able to become who he wanted to be, and everything else fell into line. I can see myself in his kid because as a child I was the same way as the child character in the movie. Only interested in stupid things like a screen or video game, and not the mystical possibilities of the culinary world being shown to me by my own divorced father. However, I did not go on a cross country food truck road trip, even though I really would have liked that. I really like this movie because it shows that food is more than just something you consume and critique, it is something that can make bonds stronger, make people happier, and be a fantastic creative outlet.