Film No. 8 (2022) January 30th. 5:00 PM PALACE Cinema 2, Raine Square, Perth City.
"Gourmet cuisine is not for the common man. I demand you close this dump."(Le duc de Chamfort decides his station in life allows him to rule over which enterprises function and which don't).
Deliciously fictional, but who knows? Maybe the beginnings of restaurant dining and the sorts of ructions occurring amongst the everyday folk just prior to the Storming Of The Bastille really did play out like director Eric Besnard (SENSE OF WONDER) would have us believe. Who cares! DELICIOUS is pure entertainment and people all round the globe are loving it.
DELICIOUS is a bit like those wholesome, well made, Disney films from our past. Pierre Manceron (Gregory Gadebois) is a cook (chef in these times) for the ages. He serves the Duke of Chamfort. He oversees the royal kitchen and creates food of the utterly mouth-watering kind. We meet him as he is creating a new, innovative sensation. Dare he build a pastry delight from the downtrodden potato? The visiting gentry belittle him and his food and he is asked to apologise for it. He won't. He's out on his ear!
We know that The Duke will pay eventually. Pierre is a good man. He's only worked for "the man". On returning to his dilapidated family property he mopes. He doesn't want to cook. He lacks desire to create food until the mysterious Louise (Isabella Carre) appears and wants to learn from him. The best moments in DELICIOUS come when Gregory and Louise create food. The images and their chemistry add up to relaxing, easy going entertainment. The alliance Louise forms with Gregory's late-teen son Jacob (Christian Bouillette) adds dimension to the budding enterprise (restaurant on a main coach route) Gregory gradually warms to.
The French, along with the Spanish & Italians, make a sumptuous costume drama look so seamless and uncomplicated. As a film lover, I'd love to witness first hand how labour intensive a production such as DELICIOUS must be. The images washing the screen here, with a smidge of CGI fudging I dare say, are a good reason people continue to pass through the box office.
But don't go to DELICIOUS expecting an earthy truth about French history during a very tenuous time. Maybe the world's first restaurant did spark rumblings that led to The French Revolution, but I seriously doubt it. Oh, and don't eat before hand. You'll have all sorts of ideas about sating your hunger by the time the titles roll. 9GUMS.
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