Opening with a quote from Henry David Thoreau’s 1863 essay “Life Without Principle” including the lines “Let us consider how we pass our lives / This world is a place of business / What infinite agitation”, the film “La Cocina” aims to examine in depth these concepts and how work can take control of life and sweep away many other concerns.

Directed by Mexican director Alonso Ruizpalacioswhich adapted Arnold Wesker’s 1957 play “The Kitchen,” the film is a blast of furious energy that also knows how to stop, with a few moments of gentle lyricism for punctuation. This is Ruizpalacios’ fourth feature film in about a decade and it feels like a big step forward, a move from a promising talent to someone truly blossoming as a storyteller. Even though what is depicted on screen spirals completely out of control, there is a sense of security in the making of the film that makes it one of the most recent films of the year.

“La Cocina” takes place in a large Manhattan restaurant known as the Grill, which serves food to tourists at an alarming volume. The story begins with young Estela (Anna Díaz) walking through the side door before opening it to lightly make her way to a position as an assistant cook. From there, things just keep happening, as one event spirals into another in a headlong rush amid the incessant clanking of plates and pans and the machine spitting out endless order tickets.

Anna Díaz and Raúl Briones in the film “La Cocina”.

(Willa)

The action soon revolves around Pedro (a remarkable Raúl Briones), a burned-out chef from the same small Mexican town as Estela who is the charismatic and chaotic center of the kitchen. He has a not entirely secret affair with one of the waitresses, Julia (Rooney Mara), who became pregnant and has an appointment for an abortion later that day, between two shifts.

The employees represent a mini-UN, with some workers referring to their country of origin by nicknames. (A new waitress repeatedly corrects people by saying she is Dominican, not Mexican.) Their lives outside the restaurant are of little importance, with a break in the alley being the only time for a meaningful connection.

There remains a strict sense of territory and hierarchy as the waitresses do their jobs and the chefs do theirs, all with anxious intensity. The owner often dangles a never-kept promise to help his undocumented employees obtain their papers in order to keep them on the job. Management is eager to recover the $800 that went missing the night before, and staff members are questioned to see if anyone stole it.

Far from being a well-oiled machine, the kitchen is a zone of dysfunction riddled with petty squabbles and petty fiefdoms; it seems like a small miracle that anything is served to anyone. A broken soda machine creates a near-apocalyptic flood. Eventually, the discord in the kitchen spills over into the dining room and that’s when everyone knows things have gone too far.

It says a lot about her talents: even though Julia constitutes the emotional core of the story, Mara doesn’t stand out like any other. Hollywood staffr among the rest of the cast. With her stringy, bleached hair and tired demeanor, she fits in perfectly, while her antics like trick-or-treating with a lighter or burping after downing a beer too fast are adorable and endearing but also mask something troubled and edgy. struggle below.

Rooney Mara in the film “La Cocina”.

(Willa)

Working with cinematographer Juan Pablo Ramírez and editor Yibrán Asuad – and shooting in black and white with significant splashes of color – Ruizpalacios creates a visual style that continues to reinvent itself until the end, creating a feeling unpredictable which matches the volatile plot. .

Comparisons to the hit TV series “The Bear”, also about what happens behind the scenes of a restaurant, will be inevitable. But “La Cocina” is essentially not interested in the food itself – the only thing lovingly photographed is a simple sandwich – because Ruizpalacios focuses narrowly on the endless hustle and bustle of the work itself and the people who just trying to get to the end. the day so they can come back to do it all again.