Mostly Martha
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Movie Reviews of Mostly Martha
Movie Review: Mostly Martha MOLTO Bellisima!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
Molto Bellisimma means very beautiful and this movie is very, very beautiful! This is the best movie I have seen in 2003. It has everything I love in a movie: Love, Drama, superb acting, fabulous and Believable story line, wonderful locations and it is so delicious just like the food in the movie. Only one slight critisicm, no restaurant would have 2 Chefs off work on the same day in the scene where Lina and Mario cooks Italian food in Martha's home kitchen. Set in the Lido restuarant of Hamburg in northern Germany, Martha Klein is a neurotic but wonderful Chef of a boutique restaurant, famous for its great food like foie gras. She has to see a psychiatrist or Therapeut (in German)otherwise her lady boss will fire her. The funny scenes like when she tells the imbecilic customer who complains that her foie gras (goose liver) is raw, that it is ,,perfekt" and cooked at 140 degrees Celsius for 3 minutes is simply hilarious. She then tells him "go and eat Leberwurst (liver sausage) if you don't know how to eat foie gras!!". I COULD NOT AGREE MORE! As Dr. Michael Lim The Travelling Gourmet, I am a Travel, Food and Wine Writer/Consultant and I can tell you that much of the movie is true to live. I am also a Chef and complaints from people who do not know how to appreciate fine gourmet food are legion. Especially so from the nouveau riche. Lots of money but full of bad taste. Moments of great sadness in the movie made me cry like when Martha hears that her single parent sister has gone to heaven in a car accident. She ends up taking care of her 8 year old niece who could do with some psychiatric help too. I don't blame her as her Italian Dad has run off to Italy where he has another wife and kids while her Mum has just died in a car accident, plus she is only 8 years old. The trauma of her Mums's death sends her into a deep depression and she becomes anorexic and refuses to eat. Enter charismatic and somewhat eccentric Mario in the restaurant as her assistant and sparks fly. He cooks with style and finesse to Dean Martin singing "Volare" in Italian which he plays on his own "Ghetteo Blaster". Martha is shocked and the contrast between the uptight German character of Chef Martha and the coool, extrovert and hang loose Mario is really incredibly and sardonically funny! Mario is a very nice guy although somewhat manipulative and he really helps Lina the little girl to overcome her Anorexia Nervosa and start eating and laughing again. Mario and Martha and Lina eventually form a nice family unit as Mario falls in love with Martha and vice versa. Like an emotional roller coaster, the father of Lina arrives to bring her back to Italy in his lorry. He is a long distance lorry driver with another family in Italy. Mario and Martha are depressed. I cried too. Then Martha decides on her course of action and acts in the best traditions of the SAS who always believe that "Who Dares Wins!" She gives an irate customer with bad taste who complains that her steak is not rare enough a chilled, raw bloody steaky on the table! A Chef's dream come true, Ha! Ha! Then Mario and Martha drive to Italy to bring back Lina, get married and open their own gourmet restuarant. The scene where Lina runs laughing with love and glee right into the outstretched arms of Martha while the warm Italian sun shines is heart wrenching. I cried at the end but they were tears of joy! A fantastic movie and if you understand German and know something about food, you will fall in love with this movie as much as I love Azerbaijan Malossol Caviar and Wieninger Gruner Veltliner Austrian wine. Guten Appetit! Die Gedanken sind frei! ENJOY! By Dr. Michael Lim The Travelling GourmetMovie Review: A touching delicious film who treats food as art
Summary: 5 Stars
I loved everything about this movie - the story, the great music and the actors - especially the Italian Sergio Castellitto with whom you cannot but fall in love. I also loved the tempting looking foods presented in this film and the great respect with which they are created. There is something very refined and exquisite about this film and about the treatment of cooking as any other form of art (including tolerance to the nature of its artists). Although the heroine, Martha seems at first like a "cold fish", she is moving and touching with her vulnerability and towards the end you find yourself weeping without restraint. In the beginning of the movie Martha is not really a person you can easily relate to . She is very precise, very clean and orderly. I love the parts where Martha is getting prepared for work in the kitchen, she stands still and then shakes the clean white apron and ties it around her - this act is pictured as a ceremony preparing Martha physically and mentally to what she is about to do - her art work. Indeed Martha is considered a magician with foods. However, outside the kitchen it seems that Martha is not a person that moves at ease with the world around her. When her work is interrupted by human things or upset by a client (daring to return food to the kitchen), Martha has a hard time dealing with it and has to run to the large fridge to literally cool down.
Martha's clean sterile world is shattered when her sister dies and she needs to take care of her niece Lina. She does her best but finds it hard to relate to the young girl. Both of them are determined to find the child's father who lives in Italy. During this time of upheaval in Martha's life another chef is introduced to the kitchen to fill out for Martha. This is an Italian guy, talkative and warm, not very orderly and not very sterile (likes eating with his hands) who upsets Martha's life in the kitchen as well ("a mad person in my kitchen"? she asks the restaurant owner... "He's Italian"... is the answer). The kitchen is a place of harmony and control in Martha's world and now she feels her harmony is broken ("two chefs in one kitchen is like two drivers behind the wheel" Martha tells her psychologist) . The Italian chef seems to "see" inside Martha from the start and is not taken aback by her cold behaviour. Martha has no other way but to slowly surrender to the Italian charm.
Martha's relationship with Lina develops slowly throughout the movie and although the end is inevitable they succeed in moving the viewers to tears with the restrained gestures and dynamics between them.
Martha's tremendous efforts to control her "inner self" in order to become a good care taker for Lina, and her attraction to the Italian chef who is so opposite from her are endearing.
Movie Review: Mostly Martha
Summary: 5 Stars
Beyond great! A true tour of the heart and a reminder that the sun rises - always. An absolute "upper'
I was lifted up by this film! There was so much unassuming joy scattered throughout this story. It was so hopeful in the face of the worst kind of loss; a message that there is light at the end of all of our dark tunnels. And a clear reminder that we are not in control. The whole script seemed a solid comment on the resilience of the spirit and the strength of the truest kind of love, that of a child.
It was without any offensive content, save one mild curse word and my 9 year old enjoyed it as much as my husband and I. Even where almost uncontrollable passion was represented, it certainly got the message across without going too far.... left something to one's imagination, which is always more fun. Less CAN be more.
Martina Gedeck (Martha) is a master at conveying her character's deepest thought and emotion through the smallest gesture and her colorful body language, she is a natural actress and natural beauty. Her role was perfectly cast.
Sergio Castellito (Mario)'s performance carries 1/2 the weight of this beautiful film so easily and unassumingly, but it was Mario's soulful eyes and open and uncorrupted manner that pushed me over the edge and made me love him.
It is one of the top 5 best "feel good" movies I have ever seen
Other movies that made me feel like this were MARTIAN CHILD with John Cusack and AUGUST RUSH.
I cannot finish without mentioning the incredible performance, by Maxime Foerste, who played the 8 year old girl, Lina, was heart wrenching and at the same time healing and filled with hope. I am a mother of three. This film plucked at those strings I so vehmently protect and made me remember what or who really matters and that it's best to show them - now.
I would recommend it to anyone... as soon as they can read!
Movie Review: Probably the most realistic restaurant story ever filmed.
Summary: 5 Stars
I laughed when I read this observation by another Amazon reviewer:
"Relatively few upright, hyper-neat perfectionists get into cooking because it is inherently messy, unpredictable and sensual. Any food actually cooked by a "Martha" would be tasteless and uninspired. Not mention that relatively few chefs are model-thin and manage to work in a kitchen as clean as a sterile surgical facility and in white clothes without a drop of grease or gravy."
Ha! Obviously this person has never worked for a German chef. I have, and Martha's methods are typical of the chefs of her country, and for all their meticulousness and "sterility," not one ever produced tasteless food (being neat and precise has no bearing on the quality of the food one produces; one's palate, skill and inventiveness do, however). But this is beside the point -- "Mostly Martha" is a terrific film on many levels, not in the least because it is a totally realistic depiction of the life of a female executive chef in ANY country. I burst out laughing as I watched Martha hide in the walk-in to cry or fume (I've done this myself many times), and the restaurant "family meal" scenes have all the coziness and familiarity of real restaurant staff meals. The plot of the movie itself could have been dreadfully treacly and sentimental (as it would have been in American hands), but instead it is affecting, romantic and honest. As such, I'd rate "Mostly Martha" up there with "Babette's Feast" and "Eat, Drink, Man, Woman," the two greatest food films ever made (interesting that none of these are American, isn't it? But American filmakers have never known the real place great food has in life, family and love, have they?).
Movie Review: SEE THIS MOVIE~~IT'S A FEAST!
Summary: 5 Stars
This film is so rich and delicious that you will not notice that there are English subtitles or that the characters speak German. What you will notice is that this is a movie that is so captivating, so wonderful, that you never want it to end! It is something to be viewed again and again.
The lovely Martina Gedeck plays the title character, 'Martha' Klein, who is a chef extraordinaire. Not only is she a perfectionist but also a little obsessive compulsive. She is sent to a therapist by her boss, Frida and has no idea why. Martha is so uptight that she can't even join in the camaraderie of her fellow restaurant workers every afternoon as they eat and banter before the restaurant opens. She has no room in her life for fun or for relationships; her only pleasure is cooking~~she doesn't even spend much time eating. She continually exasperates Frida by daring to confront diners who send back their meals because they feel it is overdone or tough.
All this changes when her sister dies and her 8-year-old niece Lina comes to live with her. To upset the apple cart even more, an eccentric Italian chef, Mario (Sergio Castellitto) is hired to help out in the restaurant. Both of these characters provide excellent catalysts; they add tremendous drama to Martha's ordered life and she almost has a breakdown from the pressure. Mario is emotional, happy and loving and he helps turn Martha's life around. And as for Lina, this adorable little girl shows Martha that she can love and care for someone. I absolutely loved this little movie; what a gem. In fact, I want to share it with everyone I know!