"No Reservations is one of those movies you watch and end up enjoying it for what it is... but it's nothing that reinvents the wheel."
No Reservations was a film that was released in 2007, directed by Scott Hicks, written by Carol Fuchs, and starring Catherine Zeta-Jones as Kate Armstrong as well as Aaron Eckhart as Nick Palmer... it is ultimately about a workaholic, perfectionist master chef at a trendy Manhattan restaurant whose rigidly structured life is completely upended when she unexpectedly becomes the guardian of her young niece following a family tragedy, a messy personal crisis that forces her to learn how to connect outside of the kitchen while simultaneously clashing with a brash, opera-singing new sous-chef whose free-spirited approach to food and life challenges everything she knows about control and romance.
I chose this film as the next part of my 52-Week Movie Challenge under the prompt for Week #6: A Romance Centered Around Food/Cooking.
As I’m sure we’ve all heard before, some of the most classic clichés out there combine romance with food:
“The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.”
“Love at first bite.”
“Sugar, spice, and everything nice.”
“They’re the peanut butter to my jelly.”
All the way back to that classic Lady and the Tramp spaghetti kiss scene... it’s a thing. So, to see it as this week’s prompt wasn’t that crazy, but it really stumped me. I couldn’t think of many movies that fit the bill.
So, upon doing my research, the film that I decided on ended up being between two movies. In one corner, we had Chocolat, a film that is said to prefer the romance bit about it over the food. It’s an award winner and one I’d never seen before. However, I thought it was probably more important to talk about a film that prefers the food over the romance, and that is how I wound up with No Reservations... where the kitchen is a huge part of the movie.
Though, to be absolutely honest... the film I probably should have watched was undoubtedly Chocolat.
That’s not meant to be a dig on the movie at all. No Reservations is one of those movies you watch and end up enjoying it for what it is... but it’s nothing that reinvents the wheel or is unpredictable. This is typical 2007 rom-dram flair stuff, filled to the brim with stereotypes and tropes that we’ve seen... a lot.
Zeta-Jones, of course, is an actress that I think a lot of people enjoy watching. She does a pretty good job here. I also really like Aaron Eckhart. He’s a charismatic guy; I wish we saw him in more movies. The two of them do decent while sharing the screen. Abigail Breslin as the niece... her story is the most compelling compared to the romance, as it’s dealing with grief. Now... the sister passing away at the beginning of the movie and Zeta-Jones suddenly forced to be a guardian... while it is tacky, overdone, and cliché... I did like this. Whenever it hit those notes of grief and mourning... the film had a lot of heart and emotion, and I felt it, and more importantly, I cared.
Unfortunately, even though it was kind of the point, I found myself not caring so much about the food part of the narrative. I feel like this is partially due to recency bias and other shows featuring kitchen nightmares with emotional baggage, such as The Bear... which obviously... is far superior to No Reservations when it came to making food an interesting plot device. Thankfully, the chemistry between the two leads is strong enough to entertain and keep audiences invested long enough not to hate it, but it never truly crosses the threshold of something to love, either.
This is a date night movie through and through. It doesn’t offer enough for me to care to rewatch it or recommend it to others. It’s adequate for what it was attempting to do. Overall, I’d mostly just kinda call it safe. Safe performances, safe concept, safe technical areas like cinematography, editing, and writing. Everything feels... just so safe.
Unbiased/Technical Score: 31/50 (62%)
Biased/Entertainment Score: 31/50 (62%)
Total Combined Score: 62/100 (62%) | 3/5 on Letterboxd
Out of all six movies I’ve watched for the 52-Week Movie Challenge, this film is currently in dead last place in the ranking.