Chef: a modern take on Indian relationships
From directing advertisements to critically acclaimed film, Airlift, Raja Krishna Menon has come a long way. And even though Menon had a distaste for remakes, he went ahead with making a more ‘Indianised version’ of the 2014 hollywood high profile Chef.
The Indian adaptation of Jon Favreau’s Hollywood hit offers nothing new except the changing dynamic of relationships, be it a father-son or ex husband-wife relationship. “I think this film is a highly Indianised version of the original film because, looking at the time we are living in, it rings true for India,” says Menon, adding, “It’s a modern version for India and there are many elements in this film which are still pretty new to us - a 90s kid making his own decision to pursue his passion of becoming a chef; not finding happiness and satisfaction with our lives even after we have achieved everything we wanted; changing relationships and how women in India are now considering their happiness before anyone else’s.”
“For the first time, I got the chance of writing a character (played by Padmapriya Janakiraman) whose happiness did not depend on anyone else. She chooses not be in the marriage because she is not happy in it. She moves away to Kerala, taking her son along. and is extremely happy. But she is still friends with her ex-husband. Now, this is again a new relationship in India,” added the Barah Aana director.
The universal problem of ‘Do I focus on my work or my family’ is also addressed in this film as we see Saif trying to make amends with his son after not being content with his workaholic life. On the question of why Menon considered Saif as the right choice for playing Chef Roshan, he answered, “I think Saif has an approachability and I wanted to turn that into insecurity. In our film, he plays a character Roshan Kalra, who is a star but inside, he is confused and insecure. The idea was to get someone who can be vulnerable, has insecurities but still consider himself as a star. To me, Saif has all those elements – he can play a father who is confused about whether to be friends with his kid or be authoritarian.”
Releasing on October 6, Chef is an exploratory culinary journey of a Chef who is trying to find out what it means to be a father, an ex-husband and what it means to be truly happy in life.