Too many cooks spoil the broth in this absurdist depiction of America's service industry and the false promises of the American Dream...
Words: George Straw
American dream, American nightmare. Alonso Ruizpalacios’ 2024 La Cocina offers a glimpse into the day-to-day running of a bustling New York restaurant. The film presents a bleak depiction of the American service industry, and gets to the heart of the essential horror of working life in America.
La Cocina follows several of the cooks and table staff working at a restaurant, one of whom is Pedro (Raúl Briones Carmona), whose desire to obtain a green card and pursue a better life is contrasted with his disgust at the indignities of American life and his longing to return to his home of Mexico. Another is Julia (Rooney Mara), whose relationship with Pedro is complicated by financial insecurity and doubts about his commitments, and Estela (Anna Diaz), who struggles to adjust to the chaos of her new working environment. On top of these character dynamics, eight hundred dollars has gone missing, and the restaurant’s boss is conducting an investigation to find which of the employees has the money.
At its core, this film is an examination of the melting pot of New York City, the abuse and exploitation of immigrant workers in modern America, and the false promise of the American dream. The film is at its best in its depiction of the vicious and nightmarish realities of restaurant work, which is how it expertly captures the mundane horror of working in America. Striking a certain resemblance to the popular TV show The Bear, La Cocina spends much of its runtime recreating the anxiety-inducing mayhem of working in a kitchen. From the constant screaming of the chefs and waitresses, floor running back and forth, the head chef barking orders, cramped working environments, everyone getting in everyone’s else’s way. This film is enormously successful in depicting the downright ugliness of the service industry.
Blending aspects of magical realism, the whole kitchen floods with Coca Cola, Ruizpalacios manages to create an almost absurdist parody of the service industry...
The restaurant appears to the viewer as a vision of hell. At times blending aspects of magical realism - for example the whole kitchen flooding with Coca Cola - Ruizpalacios manages to create an almost absurdist parody of the service industry. The scenes in the kitchen are edited with several cuts and fast camera movements, adding to the chaos and stress of these sequences. The scenes set in the manager’s office at the restaurant are filled with close up shots, the room is small and cramped, with a noticeably low ceiling; the result of this is an overwhelming feeling of being trapped in this place of work. Effective in an audio and well as video sense, the film has a recurring audio motif of receipts being printed from a machine in the kitchen, which is constantly in the background, a permanent reminder that there is always more work to do, the suffering never ends; this is the reality of a constant soul-consuming drive towards the acquisition of profit.
America is both an object of desire and disgust in La Cocina, because it is a bountiful land of endless opportunity, but in reality a ruthless trap that will eat you up and spit you out...
As a result of Ruizpalacios’ direction, a looming sense of dread hangs over the film, a feeling that everything is being pushed to its absolute limit and it’s only a matter of time until it all comes falling down. As well as this, the film is also an exploration of the immigrant experience in modern America. The film does a fantastic job of demonstrating how employers manipulate and exploit immigrant workers; immigrant characters are trapped in this hellish workplace, fed the constant empty promise that some day soon they’ll be given a green card, but forever treated as an outsider. America is both an object of desire and disgust in La Cocina, because it is a bountiful land of endless opportunity, but in reality a ruthless trap that will eat you up and spit you out. The various characters all simultaneously dream of finding their fortune, but also long to escape the depressing grind of modern America. The supervisor at the restaurant, the son of immigrants, believes that he is better than the first generation immigrants who work for him, but in reality the film tells us that white Americans will still never accept him. This film acts as a scornful refutation of the entire concept of the American dream.
Despite this, the film does not excel in every aspect. In places the pacing is a little too slow, the plot occasionally felt meandering, and the dialogue was at times stilted. The film would benefit from focusing a little more on the chaotic kitchen workplace, which is where the film is at its strongest, and a little less on interpersonal melodrama, which is somewhat dull. Again, it could perhaps be improved by a slightly trimmed down runtime. With that being said, the film is thoroughly enjoyable. Its depiction of the service industry is unmatched, and its commentary on immigration in modern America is deeply insightful; I would certainly not hesitate in recommending this film to anyone.
La Cocina is now playing at Broadway Cinema Nottingham.
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