Tuesday, August 28, 2007

No Reservations - Mostly Martha

The American update to German film Mostly Martha, starring Catherine Zeta-Jones and Aaron Eckhart, doesn't live up to the original, but is still good entertainment. Abigail Breslin (from Little Miss Sunshine) is orphaned and taken in by her food-obsessed aunt Cat. Zeta-Jones plays the part pretty well, very cold and determined to be the best chef. However, every other person or character I've ever seen obsessed with food actually has joy in experiencing their food - and Zeta-Jones doesn't actually eat her food most of the time, and doesn't enjoy it any more than she has to. Eckhart plays her opposite, brought into the restaurant so she can deal with her sisters death and taking care of her neice. He's fun and professional and good at being a person as well as a chef. He and Zeta-Jones have persuasive chemistry, but her character is so cold it's hard to believe she'd just melt like that (though I would, so who am I to judge). Abigail Breslin is really good at being an 8-year-old girl who lost her mom, but understands enough about life to know that she has to deal with it, and help her aunt figure things out. Good entertainment and will be shown on EVERY airplane for the next year - perfect PG entertainment.

2 comments:

Cat said...

I'll probably save this for my in-flight viewing. (Which is not necessarily a bad thing; I really enjoyed watching "Music & Lyrics" on my flight to England!) But I wanted to comment that I love that the character's name is Cat, and also Paul and I have commented recently (seeing a scene from "Thank You For Not Smoking" on Showtime) that we both really dig Aaron Eckhart. I'm not sure Hollywood always knows what to do with his talents, but he does have some serious charisma.

Jess said...

Exactly...he's pretty great in this - though I prefer him a bit more cleaned up than scruffy. I really liked Thank you for smoking...very odd, but compelling all the way through.