|
All-Reviews.com Movie/Video Review
Tortilla Soup
|
 out of 4
| *Also starring: | Julio Oscar Mechoso, Constance Marie, Marisabel Garci, Raquel Welch, Jacqueline Obradors, Nikolai Kinski, Tamara Mello |
|
Review by Susan Granger
3 stars out of 4
|
Based on the Taiwanese film "Eat Drink Man Woman," this is a savory
romantic comedy about the power of love and food in a middle-class
Mexican-American family in Los Angeles. As Martin, the patriarch and master chef
of the Naranjo family, Hector Elizondo whips up delectable concoctions,
including freshly made guacamole, roasted red and yellow peppers, and sizzling
plantains. "We honor dinner," he instructs his daughters. "We have good manners
and good conversation." Problem is: he can't taste food since his wife's death.
And each of the girls has her own angst. The eldest, Letitia, called Letty
(Elizabeth Pena), is a repressed schoolteacher who fears God and almost
everything else - until a baseball coach (Paul Rodriguez) convinces her that
love is, indeed, possible. Feisty Carmen (Jacqueline Obradors), a businesswoman,
is quick-tempered, perhaps because her heart is really in the kitchen, even
though her nouveau recipes jar her father's already-frayed nerves. And the
youngest, Maribel (Tamara Mello), is about to leave for college when she meets a
handsome Brazilian (Nikolai Kinski, son of Klaus Kinski). Raquel Welch overdoes
the wacky neighbor routine but Julio Oscar Mechoso is memorable as Martin's
affectionate best-friend and catering business partner. Admittedly, writers Tom
Musca, Ramon Menendez & Vera Blasi and director Maria Ripoli don't achieve the
sublime success of Ang Lee's "Eat Drink Man Woman" - nominated as Best Foreign
Language Film of 1994 - but this, nevertheless, is a tantalizing, tasty morsel,
extolling traditional family values with the context of the contemporary world.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, "Tortilla Soup" is a zesty 7. You'll
consume this visual feast with gusto - and be ready for a Mexican meal
afterwards.
Copyright © 2001 Susan Granger
| |
|
|
Buy movie posters!
|
