What’s Cooking?
Year of release: 2001
Directed by: Gurinder Chadha
United Kingdom, United States
A multi-strand narrative about several immigrant families who all live in LA's multi-ethnic Fairfax district and who are preparing the traditional American Thanksgiving meal, turkey, according to their ethnically specific recipes.
The film centres on the idea of similarities and differences between American families of Jewish, Latin American, Chinese and African origin by juxtaposing the Thanksgiving celebrations and the preparation of the traditional meal. In the Chinese American family, half the turkey is marinated according to an old Chinese recipe, so as to please the grandmother, the other half is left to roast American style. But then the turkey burns in the oven and the family ends up getting Kentucky Fried Chicken instead, the children's favourite meal. The families' get togethers result in conflicts and the revelation of family secrets such as inter-ethnic romance, a pregnancy, an extra-marital affair, the possession of a gun, a lesbian relationship, etc.
The film's final sequence reveals how all of these stories about families on Thanksgiving Day hang together. Startled by the sound of a gunshot, they all rush outside into the street, where all of these families live -- on whole without much interaction, except for the Chinese son and the Latin American daughter, who are going out with each other (without their parents' knowledge or consent).
Filed under: Ethnic food | Inter-ethnic romance | Secrets