Tortilla Soup

When American producer Samuel Goldwyn Jr bought Ang Lee's Eat Drink Man Woman for US distribution, he also picked up the remake rights. Hence this domestic comedy where Mexican cuisine and a Southern California setting replace the Chinese delicacies of the Taiwanese original, but familial dilemmas remain the same. Elizondo is the widower chef worried that his taste is going and that he's losing contact with his three daughters, though they all still live at home. There are subplots for everyone: schoolteacher Peña is getting love notes from the baseball coach; business exec Obradors has a hankering to be a chef; while youngest Mello upsets dad with her Brazilian boyfriend. Meanwhile the table groans under the weight of mouth-watering dishes, the foodie interludes serving as partial cover for the clunkiness of the storytelling. It's not such a terrible idea to relocate the drama within another patriarchal community, but three new writers have failed to inject fresh life into the scenario. Though the cast are willing, the movie plods along in need of the zingy flavours and hot spices we see going into Elizondo's cooking.