This is a great film that would have been a magnificent film if it was an hour shorter. It felt victim to the same fate of Killers of the Flower Moon, a nearly 4 hour film, great, but tragically watered down its effect and affect due to its length.
Unlike others, I appreciated the decentralized plot for what it was and how it was used in the context of a Times Square mega-kitchen. It felt like a Pollack, which is how kitchen environments often feel. The vast ensemble cast from front house to back house, big man upstairs trickling down to misfits downstairs, long dizzying panoramic shots, and unexpected moments of deep intimacy/meaningfulness with arbitrary events and people using the extreme close ups, along with the kaleidoscope of sound, languages, and profanity created the luminous texture that is New York City. The acting was beautifully natural with no "acting natural", especially the outstanding work of Raúl Briones, the dream monologue from Motell Foster, and head chef Lee R. Sellers (they must've plucked him right out of a Brooklyn deli.) The sound design was spot on. The title treatments were wonderfully stylized. The DP work, I didn't see why it needed to be black and white for no reason and almost dismissed it as gimmick, but eventually it seemed to justify itself: it brought an element of timelessness to one of the only places that the temporal elements of tech and ai can't touch.
Certain legs of the plot seemed unnecessary, such as the ant-like pain aspect of Rooney Mara's character in the freezer room, it seemed to force depth where there wasn't any, the abortion aspect was enough for us to empathize with her journey. The sheer level of the flooded kitchen seemed a bit unrealistic and showy and for too long, I mean it looked like they were in the Titanic, a little water here and there in the most inconvenient places would have felt more chaotic. Also the supremacist dialogue about the superiority of white women "guera", was a big turn-off and left a bad flavour in my mouth, even if it was being said in jest by some goofy mannered man. Does it matter if it captured a real conversation that could happen? No. These are real things white supremacists think, and it's being reaffirmed and idealized here by someone brown? Why would you want to capture that sentiment? At least balance it with another dialogue from another man salivating over the superiority and perfection of brown women. Completely misguided attempt at realism with that.
The realism that did work was the simultaneous hate and camaraderie of coworkers, the carelessness of food prep, the manipulative ways of management, the personality disorders of people, and the bond-forming lunch breaks. Overall, it would have been a lot more effective if it was an 1h 20 min. By the middle of my shift, I just wanted to clock out from the chaos.
