VividSimon Simply Perfect

Grimerlana Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

Teringer An Exercise In Nonsense

Invaderbank The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

TheLittleSongbird What saves Love's Kitchen from being an unsalvageable mess is Simon Callow. He positively relishes his role and is just delightful to watch. The film's also competently photographed and has charming locations. Dougray Scott and Claire Forlani perform earnestly, and are a warm, cute couple with some real genial spark.The rest of the cast do not come over very naturally, with emotions both overcooked and underplayed. This is especially true with the cameo of Gordon Ramsay, a cameo that felt like a forced gimmick above all else that takes one completely out of the film. It's not completely the cast's fault though, because of the characters only Callow's has any real juice(a large part as to why he was the one that registered most strongly, as well as that he's a talented actor) and there are too many secondary roles that have so little depth to them. The script is pretty disastrous, much of the dialogue is stilted and hollow with some very awkward tone changes, and of the romance, comedy and drama elements it only does just okay with the romantic elements, which are quite cute. The comedy however is very forced, with again only Callow being properly at ease, and the drama is caked in maudlin sentiment that it'll make one nauseous.Another major problem with Love's Kitchen is the story. A lot of romantic comedies get criticised for being predictable, but very few romantic comedies are this predictable, one where it's clear how the entire film was going to end even before it started. There is absolutely nothing fresh here and the material is treated with very little flavour or substance, everything feeling bland and shallow instead. The soundtrack is fitting but with not much memorable about it, the pacing was constantly askew being often on the dull side and Jack Hacking's direction is all over the place, pace-wise and especially tonally, only showing competence technically.In conclusion, one flavourless confection salvageable only by three performances and the production values. 3/10 Bethany Cox

Theo Robertson It wasn't until I consulted Wikipedia that I found out how much commercial contempt that LOVE'S KITCHEN received from the British public . In the five cinema's it was shown in it made a grand taking of one hundred and twenty one pounds sterling ( £121 ) which means a grand total of seventeen people paid to watch it . Putting it in to perspective about you're twice as likely to know someone who attended the opening than you have of knowing someone who became a lottery millionaire that week One suspects that this exceptional low grossing opening led to a large amount of bandwagonism by the British newspaper critics . They all without exception put the boot in to the film as if their professional careers depended upon slating the film . As someone who has nothing to lose by stating their opinion online I can only state that it's not a good film but is nowhere as bad as made out The problem lies in that it's maybe trying a bit too hard and does become very predictable . The audience are asked to empathise why the trauma of Rob Haley played by Dougray Scott who losing his wife in a car crash has to now bring up his young daughter while trying to expand a business in a small town populated by nearly famous British character actors . In it's efforts to be sweet it ends up being rather sickly and like so many British movies it has a feel and look of something that gets broadcast on Sunday evenings on ITV . As a romantic comedy it's not much better or worse than other British films within the genre and wonders perhaps if its failure is mainly down to the public appetite for this type of British film had like the gangster film been done to death

robinson-david1 When I first saw this film I was decidedly unimpressed but when I had seen it 4 times I realised what a charming gem of a film it is though rather amateurish Story is a failed chef (Scott) buys an old English pub that looks out on a village green complete with pond and ducks and falls in love with a food critic Forlani. The chemistry between Forlani and Scott is really good seeing as how in real life the two just got married Sometimes I thought Forlani was going to eat Scott rather than the lovely trifle. This film could never be a financial success because no blood everywhere or dead or nude bodies. It should be watched in the atmosphere of the home not the cinema and was well worth making.

TxMike We watched this on Netflix streaming movies. Filmed in England, Forlani plays an American character of British parents.Dougray Scott (villian in M.I. 2) is chef Rob Haley with a thriving business in London. Very early in the movie his wife, who has a habit of driving too fast while on the cell phone, dies in a crash. Rob loses his will to be an excellent chef, and his restaurant gets a very negative review.Three years after his wife's death he re-looks at a pub for sale in the countryside. Along with his young daughter gets re-vitalized and buys the place, fixes it up to be his new restaurant.Claire Forlani as Kate Templeton happens to be a restaurant critic. In fact Rob eventually finds out it was she who wrote that negative review. But in the grand scheme of things it helped him realize he had to do better.The road towards romance is predictably rocky, and not all situations and dialog make good sense, but overall it is an enjoyable, entertaining movie. But a very light weight one.I never liked the loud, angry Gordon Ramsay on his TV show, but here he makes a small cameo as Himself to provide some comic relief. Most of the comic relief is provided by Simon Callow who is a food critic that has a penchant for drinking way too much before he ever samples the food and the live taped shows suffer for it. Until his producer finds a novel solution in the form of a bodyguard who monitors his intake of liquids!