No Reservations is a love story that keeps a careful balance between tragedy and comedy.
The film, a remake of the German movie Mostly Martha, stars a dressed-down Catherine Zeta-Jones as Kate, a master chef whose work is her life.
Intense and somewhat humourless, Kate controls a kitchen full of people and appears to have no interests at all outside her job.
Then her orphaned niece (Abigail Breslin) comes to live with her, and Kate struggles with her feelings of inadequacy around the child. She doesn't know how to amuse a child, and she cannot even get the little girl to eat properly.
Further complicating Kate's life is the arrival of Nick, a new sous-chef at work. Nick is noisy, funny and outrageous and everyone on staff adores him -- except Kate, of course. She's terrified that he will undermine her authority. She thaws a bit when Nick proves to be great with kids and is able to help her with her niece. Kate is a frightened, controlling person; the slow, believable development of her relationship with Nick is the centre of the story.
No Reservations is more adult than most romantic dramedies, with no sitcom humour and no razzle-dazzle cutting required. It also has a role for Patricia Clarkson (as the restaurant owner), always a good sign in a film. Moreover, the story is told in a refreshingly relaxed fashion, just the thing to let the characters become three-dimensional.
Zeta-Jones and Eckhart have terrific on-screen chemistry, despite the fact that both characters are underwritten.
Kate is too brittle and Nick is too jolly, but both actors manage to transcend all that.
What Abigail Breslin adds to the mix in her role as the heartbroken niece is very impressive.
Breslin and Eckhart have some charming moments together in the movie, flipping pizza and cooking a big dinner, and it's all fairly low-key and endearing.
No Reservations doesn't ring entirely true, which isn't too surprising for the genre, but it is a cut above most offerings of its sort.
And having Philip Glass oversee the music doesn't hurt, either.
(This film is rated PG)
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