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We've seen it before - single, self-centered, career-minded woman acquires, through generally wacky means, somebody else's sassy kid. Adult and kid initially butt heads, but eventually help each other grow emotionally. When this premise is done with no thought, you get something like Bogus with Whoopi Goldberg and Haley Joel Osment. When it's done right, you get Mostly Martha, a terrific German import that combines the tired aforementioned concept with the hunger-inducing food preparation scenes of films like Big Night, Babette's Feast and Like Water For Chocolate (but not Woman On Top).
When Martha opens, we hear a woman talking about an intricately prepared meal, and we assume it's taking place in a restaurant, possibly as a waitress describes the evening's special to her diners. In reality, the conversation occurs in a shrink's office, as Martha (Martina Gedeck) illustrates how she would prepare fresh pigeon as her doctor (August Zirner) holds his stomach in an attempt to conceal the growling. She is the head chef of Lido, a haute Hamburg eatery whose owner Frida (Sibylle Canonica) forces Martha to see the therapist because she's a little confrontational with diners who have a problem with her dishes.
Martha is also a rigid, thirtysomething woman who allows nothing into her life other than cooking. Overly controlling with hair in a tight bun (didn' t Phil Hartman used to do a character like this?), Martha doesn't cook because she loves to do it, or because she has fun tasting her creations - she does it because she's extremely good at it. She approaches food with the affection of a chemist mixing unlovable chemicals together. And, of course, Martha's heart has been on ice for a long time.
One tragic event threatens to derail Martha's carefully constructed but seemingly joy-free life - the death of her sister. When Martha becomes the ward of her young niece Lina (Maxime Foerste), her work begins to suffer. So boss Frida, without consulting Martha, hires an Italian chef named Mario (Sergio Castellitto) to help out in Lido's kitchen. Needless to say, Martha doesn't like the Puccini-humming Mario, but he eventually grows on her, especially after he slyly convinces the withdrawn Lina to eat her first post-tragedy meal.
I thought the way writer-director Sandra Nettelbeck handled the subplot involving Lina refusing to eat was one of the things that made Martha work. In addition to being the catalyst for the inevitable relationship between Martha and Mario, it also helps establish just how out of touch Martha really is. A kid whose mother has just died needs comfort food, but Martha tries to feed Lina her nouveau cuisine. "I wish I had a recipe for you," a desperate and concerned Martha says to a withering Lina, like recipes are the cure-all for all of life's problems.
So Nettlebeck carefully prepares her story, though it's very formulaic and predictable. The gorgeous scenes involving Martha's food preparation would be enough to separate Martha from other films of this ilk, but Nettlebeck is also blessed with a score of great performances, especially from Foerste and Gedeck, the latter of whom won Germany's equivalent of an Oscar.
1:45 - PG thematic material and mild language
========== X-RAMR-ID: 32978 X-Language: en X-RT-ReviewID: 786072 X-RT-TitleID: 1115960 X-RT-SourceID: 595 X-RT-AuthorID: 1146 X-RT-RatingText: 7/10
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