Spoiler alert. Don't read if you're convinced you will watch John Wells' Burnt.
Burnt isn't about cooking. It's about failure, excellence, adversity, relationships, paranoia, and change. Burnt describes an inevitable descent after overwork and excessive hours. Burnt could have just as easily described a big-time basketball program.
The chef's kitchen is his court, his team a complex recipe of players (sous chefs) striving to produce their best. Chef Adam Jones (Bradley Cooper) washed out of a previous job, a victim of self-absorption and drugs. But he assembles a team of developing and would-be all-stars, seeking to create not meals but a culinary experience.
Jones wants his Michelin third star, the pinnacle of restaurant excellence. His assistant David says you have to be Luke Skywalker to get one star, that Alec Guinness character to get two, and if you get three - Yoda.
Jones is driven, relentless, on a quest to be the best of the best. Aloof and demanding, he brutalizes his staff creating a veritable hellhole. He explodes over overcooked turbot, excessive reduction of a sauce, or potatoes with the wrong texture ("like velvet").
Jones is convinced he has blown his chance at a third star when a pair of middle-aged male diners arrive and he is convinced they're his test. The Chef flies off the handle and the customers return their food to the kitchen. He is distraught thinking they're Michelin reviewers.
Chef: "I didn't get my third star."
Therapist (Emma Thompson): "And yet still alive."
Cooper develops a relationship with his chief assistant Helene (Sienna Miller), who shows him that the high-pressure, high 'attitude' environment doesn't have to be that way. Teamwork and operational harmony, shared love of their work might allow them to create a special, even more productive atelier.
Two middle-aged businessmen come in and order - a half bottle of wine, two glasses of water, one ordering off the menu, one a la carte. One places a fork on the floor, testing the staff's response. Michelin is in the house.
Chef Jones tells the staff, "We do what we do. And we do it together."
GSW "Burnt" at the buzzer.
