The first US feature from talented Mexican filmmaker Alonso Ruizpalacios (if you haven’t seen A Cop Movie, stream it now!), La Cocina makes The Bear look like a pussycat. The Grill is a New York greasy spoon, and the film follows an undocumented Mexican immigrant, Estella (Anna Diaz) , thrown in at the deep end on her first day working alongside chef Pedro (Raúl Briones), whose affair with one of the waitresses, Julia (Rooney Mara) is in crisis: she is due to have an abortion this afternoon. On top of which, last night’s reckoning is $800 short. Did someone on staff take it? The work is unremitting, tempers flare, the soda machine floods. Shot in black and white, this is based on a 1957 play by Arnold Wesker set in London, but it feels plugged right into the fault lines short circuiting the US right now.
A blast of furious energy that also knows when to let up, with a few moments of gentle lyricism as punctuation. One of the year’s freshest films…
Mark Olsen, LA Times
Alonso Ruizpalacios
Rooney Mara, Raúl Briones, Anna Diaz
Mexico/USA
2024
In English and Spanish with English subtitles
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Credits
Screenwriter
Alonso Ruizpalacios
Cinematography
Juan Pablo Ramírez
Editor
Yibrán Asuad
Original Music
Tomás Barreiro
Production Design
Sandra Cabriada
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