What's Cooking?

This article is about the 2000 film. For the 2013 TV series, see What's Cooking? (TV series).
What's Cooking?
Directed by Gurinder Chadha
Produced by Jeffrey Taylor
Ethan Hurt
Written by Gurinder Chadha
Paul Mayeda Berges
Starring
Music by Craig Pruess
Cinematography Jong Lin
Edited by Janice Hampton
Production
company
Redbus Film Distribution
BeCause Entertainment Group
Distributed by Trimark Pictures
Release dates
  • January 20, 2000 (2000-01-20) (Sundance)
  • November 17, 2000 (2000-11-17) (US: limited)
  • August 31, 2001 (2001-08-31) (UK)
Running time
109 minutes
Country United Kingdom
United States
Language English
Box office $1,649,655

What's Cooking? is a 2000 British/American comedy-drama film directed by Gurinder Chadha and starring Mercedes Ruehl, Kyra Sedgwick, Joan Chen, Lainie Kazan, Maury Chaykin, Julianna Margulies, Alfre Woodard, and Dennis Haysbert.

Plot

On Thanksgiving day, four ethnically diverse families -- Vietnamese, Latino, Jewish, and African American — gather for the traditional meal. Each family has its own distinct way of cooking the traditional holiday meal and its own set of problems.

Ruth and Herb Seelig (Lainie Kazan and Maury Chaykin) welcome their daughter Rachel (Kyra Sedgwick) home for the holiday. Rachel brings her lesbian lover Carla (Julianna Margulies), much to Mom and Dad's discomfiture. Additional relatives, not yet clued in, are scheduled to drop by.

Trin and Duc Nguyen (Joan Chen and François Chau) have just had their son ejected from school. If that isn't enough, Trin has found a condom among her daughter's possessions. And her son isn't bothering to attend the gala affair at all, but is secretly going to the home of his Latino girlfriend at the Avilas.

Mrs. Elizabeth Avila (Mercedes Ruehl) is separated from her husband Javier (Victor Rivers) since he had a tempestuous affair with her cousin. Unbeknownst to Elizabeth, son Tony (Douglas Spain) has invited Papa over for the holiday meal as he has nowhere else to go. Unbeknownst to Tony, Mom has her own bombshell to drop: she started seeing a White coworker who also is coming over for Thanksgiving. And, of course, the Avila daughter, Sofia (Maria Carmen), has invited her non-Latino boyfriend.

In the meantime, Audrey Williams (Alfre Woodard) must both cook and make nice with her overly critical mother-in-law, Grace (Ann Weldon), while the former's husband, Ronald (Dennis Haysbert), referees. The state of the couple's marriage is tense, and their teenage son, Michael (Eric George), isn't expected to appear for unstated reasons, which perhaps is just as well as Ronald's approval rating of his boy is at an all-time low.

Cast

Reception

Reviews were mixed. Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 52% based on reviews from 66 critics, with the site's consensus stating that the film is well-acted, but the scenes sometimes sink into melodrama as characters scream at each other, and the movie as a whole is too lightweight and forgettable."[1]

The film grossed $1,649,655.

References

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