A tasty take on familiar themes
The Food Club (M, 99 mins) Directed by Barbara Topsoe-Rothenborg
Reviewed by Graeme Tuckett ★★★ 1⁄ 2
In English and Danish and Italian with English subtitles
Here’s the deal. Three old friends, not short of a krone, but not having much luck in the feeling loved department, decide to take a trip from their home in Denmark to the sunnier climes of southern Italy, to learn how to cook some classic dishes, drink a little of the local vino, but mainly to restore a bond that has lasted since their school days, when they promised to ‘‘grib the dagen’’ (seize the day) and to always have each other’s backs.
With one of the women widowed, one newly separated and the other apparently convinced that true love was never in her stars, the stage is set for a profoundly confused narrative, in which three smart, independent and outwardly successful women celebrate the fact that they don’t need aman in their life to be happy, while talking of little else except how to get – or keep – one.
But, beyond the slightly queasy messaging – which does at least pick a side of the fence in the film’s final few minutes – and the relentlessly white-washed and exclusively prosperous vision of southern Italy The Food Club presents, there are a couple of elements to enjoy here.
The magnificently monikered director Barbara Topsoe-Rothenborg manages to transcend the worst of the Eat Pray LoveMarigold Hotel-mammamia! cliches, even while her film is sticking to the expected beats of the narrative like well-cooked spaghetti to a kitchen wall.
Her veteran cast – including Stina Ekblad ( Fanny and Alexander) – are all well up to finding a few moments of truth buried within the dialogue, while the expected ravishments of that Italian landscape once again serve to paper over the cracks in the flimsy – often non-existent – plot.
The privileged-midlife-crisis-in-Italy school of film-making has been over-represented these past 12 months, with the hilariously dreadful Made In Italy and the occasionally not-too-shabby From The Vine also setting their senior rom-coms among the rolling hills and reliably cheery and sensual locals of the mezzogiorno.
But The Food Club probably succeeds the best of the three, simply by diluting the inherent self-regard of the storyline more tolerably across three characters, then taking the time and care to make those characters not completely unenjoyable people to spend an hour or two with.
So, while I would have liked a bitmore grit and heft in the storytelling, I’m also guessing that The Food Club won’t be short of friends during its run here. And quite right, too.