Chef

I wound up watching CHEF this weekend.I quite liked it! It’s about a chef named Carl Casper who’s increasingly unhappy with his work. After he gets fired over a Twitter war with a writer who criticized his cooking, Carl is out of options, so he starts a food truck, and has to both rediscover his love of cooking and reconnect with his ex-wife and ten year old son.In STORYTELLING: HOW TO WRITE A NOVEL, I talked about the different kinds of conflict, and Carl’s conflict is an excellent example of an entirely internal conflict. The critic is an external enemy but he is basically the inciting incident – Carl’s real enemy is his own internal conflict about art vs commerce, and his strained relationship with his son.I recommend the movie. It was rated R for bad language, but there’s no nudity or explicit sexual content, and honestly if you’ve ever worked in a restaurant kitchen or a warehouse, you’ve heard much worse. The movie also has an extremely valuable lesson – stay off Twitter when you’re angry!:)-JM