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Reviews19
rehabdoc's rating
Doesn't work. A bunch of young chefs who are not that funny, trying to be entertaining and really trying too hard.
Needs something else to make it watchable, some kind of structure on the interactions, or straight man to temper all the one up man ship of the bad unscripted humor or something, I don't know what would help. Cooking shows (or any kind of reality show) really do have to have a lot of authenticity in the people to make them watchable. But here all the authenticity I feel is a bit of sadness under the faked enthusiasm of the chefs.
Food premise is also uninspired. We don't really learn a lot about cooking. Just 3 talented but pretentious young chefs kind of showing off.
Format is a failure. And I'm sure these 3 chefs are talented and nice people, but not everybody was meant to be a TV star.
Needs something else to make it watchable, some kind of structure on the interactions, or straight man to temper all the one up man ship of the bad unscripted humor or something, I don't know what would help. Cooking shows (or any kind of reality show) really do have to have a lot of authenticity in the people to make them watchable. But here all the authenticity I feel is a bit of sadness under the faked enthusiasm of the chefs.
Food premise is also uninspired. We don't really learn a lot about cooking. Just 3 talented but pretentious young chefs kind of showing off.
Format is a failure. And I'm sure these 3 chefs are talented and nice people, but not everybody was meant to be a TV star.
Acting is a little worse than you'd expect in your typical bad B action movie. Like "first time acting gig for an athlete" bad. Think Rhonda Roussey in Expendables X. Or Worse than Chuck Norris when he started way back when.
Script and tone are outdated. Cartoonishly written.
Fight scenes are very amateurish and outright slow. Unexciting. Made for TV.
Why is this trending on Netflix?
Why is this trending on Netflix?
I love this version. It is my favorite screen version in fact (and I have really enjoyed all of them, including Clueless).
I think a lot of people seemed to have missed the most important difference of this version, though the reviewer here did mention the realism and visceral nature.
What I see as the most important change is Instead of the usual hiding and glossing over of the mechanics underpinning the romanticized world and era, inhabited by the charming main characters, where some kind of invisible magic allows these people to spend their lives in idle gossip and melodrama... de Wilde and Catton choose to ironically place the upstairs/downstairs nature of daily life right in every gorgeous and cluttered scene. The servants hustling to make all this happen, you see their faces, the expression of the effort, the privilege of the people who take them for granted, the class disparity, in the backdrop of the most gorgeous world of all the versions I've watched. But it's not meant to make the main characters look unsympathetic or cruel; it's just beyond their radar. And given Emma's entire plotting is informed by class and her perception of class, it's a very welcome layer of complexity.
I think a lot of the extreme negativity (in IMDb reviews user reviews) towards this movie, and comments about the main characters in this version being charmless, comes from viewers being subliminally put off by the oblivious interactions of the main characters with their omnipresent servants, which also colors perception of Emma's actual dialog about class. Interestingly the many reviewers seem to find Bill Nighy casually treating the omnipresent servants like they are Alexa the automated house, and give him a pass. Reviewers judge women more harshly.
Most productions of Emma discreetly put the servants off the screen via closeups on the main characters, and cut off their heads, or make them leave the room etc., so you just perceive the movie and scenes to have not actually contained all these other people.
This version of Emma doesn't judge Emma and her fellow privileged class... it allows you to appreciate the narrative strictly from their point of view, and she is charming and empathetic and naive and well intentioned in that light. But the second narrative they ironically stares us in the face the whole time, is the spoiled, privileged, life melodrama and life of leisure they are all living, as the servants, in frame, scramble to make it all possible.
I think it's more realistic, and a much needed realism, that is usually deliberately glossed over. It is usually glider over in order to be able to continue to romanticize the era and enjoy the whimsical fantasy nature of these period stories. This version of Emma is kind of a post-Downton Abbey (which while trying to more realistically portray upstairs downstairs and the critiques of this privileged aristocracy, still took an overly romantic view of the landed), Parasite era awareness (complex problems of class through a modern eye), take on Emma.
It's enjoyable still on a straight story level, acting is top notch, and definitely my favorite screen version of Emma.
I think a lot of people seemed to have missed the most important difference of this version, though the reviewer here did mention the realism and visceral nature.
What I see as the most important change is Instead of the usual hiding and glossing over of the mechanics underpinning the romanticized world and era, inhabited by the charming main characters, where some kind of invisible magic allows these people to spend their lives in idle gossip and melodrama... de Wilde and Catton choose to ironically place the upstairs/downstairs nature of daily life right in every gorgeous and cluttered scene. The servants hustling to make all this happen, you see their faces, the expression of the effort, the privilege of the people who take them for granted, the class disparity, in the backdrop of the most gorgeous world of all the versions I've watched. But it's not meant to make the main characters look unsympathetic or cruel; it's just beyond their radar. And given Emma's entire plotting is informed by class and her perception of class, it's a very welcome layer of complexity.
I think a lot of the extreme negativity (in IMDb reviews user reviews) towards this movie, and comments about the main characters in this version being charmless, comes from viewers being subliminally put off by the oblivious interactions of the main characters with their omnipresent servants, which also colors perception of Emma's actual dialog about class. Interestingly the many reviewers seem to find Bill Nighy casually treating the omnipresent servants like they are Alexa the automated house, and give him a pass. Reviewers judge women more harshly.
Most productions of Emma discreetly put the servants off the screen via closeups on the main characters, and cut off their heads, or make them leave the room etc., so you just perceive the movie and scenes to have not actually contained all these other people.
This version of Emma doesn't judge Emma and her fellow privileged class... it allows you to appreciate the narrative strictly from their point of view, and she is charming and empathetic and naive and well intentioned in that light. But the second narrative they ironically stares us in the face the whole time, is the spoiled, privileged, life melodrama and life of leisure they are all living, as the servants, in frame, scramble to make it all possible.
I think it's more realistic, and a much needed realism, that is usually deliberately glossed over. It is usually glider over in order to be able to continue to romanticize the era and enjoy the whimsical fantasy nature of these period stories. This version of Emma is kind of a post-Downton Abbey (which while trying to more realistically portray upstairs downstairs and the critiques of this privileged aristocracy, still took an overly romantic view of the landed), Parasite era awareness (complex problems of class through a modern eye), take on Emma.
It's enjoyable still on a straight story level, acting is top notch, and definitely my favorite screen version of Emma.