No Reservations

The other day I saw a romance entitled No Reservations.

It's about a woman whose job is her life. Literally. Nothing else truly matters. She doesn't see family very often, she's not dating anyone, the only thing that matters is that table 5's steak is rare enough, or that her special saffron sauce is perfect.

She's the head-chef at a very fancy restaurant.

And her employer is angry with her because she takes everything regarding her food personally, and has been known to react violently, so she's sent to a therapist. ...Who she cooks for while they're on the clock. Seriously, food is her life.

One day, her sister calls and lets her know that she and her daughter are on their way over to visit from a long ways away. They agree to meet up at 9 that night, since the chef is working the dinner shift as always.

During the dinner rush, she gets a phone call. She's busy putting something together, so she asks her assistant to answer with instructions to remind her sister that they planned on meeting at 9, and she can't come earlier. Unfortunately, her sister is not on the other end of the phone.

The chef rushes to the hospital to see that, instead of her sister and her niece being in a room with two beds, there is only one bed. Only one reason to have a bed. Only one survivor. Her niece looks up at her and asks if her mom died. She requested a straight answer, but found it out for herself.

The girl is now her responsibility. She goes home, leaving her niece in the hospital, and we soon learn that her boss said that she had to take a few days off. No choice. So she cooks her niece a lunch of duck (or some other equally unusual thing for a 10 year old to enjoy), and comes to the hospital to find that she's not hungry. Which is understandable, but probably still stung.

She pays a visit to the restaurant to find that she's been temporarily replaced with a man who is her complete opposite. Opera music is playing, he's singing, he's wearing pajama pants and crocs, the entire kitchen is chillaxed, and they soon tense back up when they see her walking in the room.

Needless to say, she's pretty peeved.

Will this new chef exercise his apparent charm enough to get her to warm up to him? Or will the mutual visits to the freezer continue? And how will her niece react to the new guy? Do opposites really attract?

Considering the fact that it's a romance, it's not too hard to figure out how it will all end, but the middle parts... Now that's something else entirely.

Will her niece ever eat the gourmet food she specializes in? Who's going to watch the girl while her aunt is at work? Lunch until dinner is a long amount of time. What's it going to take to make head-chef realize that her new partner is actually worth the hassle?

I'll leave you guys to figure that out if you like.

As with everything else, the movie doesn't belong to me. I wasn't an actress, I wasn't a writer, I wasn't the costume designer, I played no part in the creation of the movie, therefore, don't give me credit.

Til Tomorrow!

-Kj