I loved Chef. In a Maya Rudolph skit, she jokes that sometimes it isn’t about going big, and sometimes you have to go small. Jon Favreau proved he could bring in the summer blockbuster bucks with the Iron Man trilogy, but with Chef, he shows that he can go back to his independent film roots without abandoning all he has learned along the way. It is a very time specific movie, and I wonder if it will age well over the years though the sentiments are timeless. Social media is practically a separate supporting character: Twitter, Facebook, Vine. Chef is about many things: business vs. art, how easy it is to destroy a lifetime of work and relationships, the key to relationships, choosing to be happy or conform to an image of success and committing to excellence. Near the end of the movie, it becomes a bit too happy ending and pat like a fairy tale, but I’m not going to take away points for it. I liked that Chef had no villains or heroes, just miscommunication, and basically all the relationships were textured and imperfect. Some people complained about overweight, aging Favreau pulling all the hot chicks, but I am going to say that it made sense in this movie. He was basically a decent guy who could cook well, and that made him hot. CBS, side eye. I had a moment-unsurprising for those who read my reviews of Spanglish and Butter-where I wondered how Cuban chefs who actually specialize in Cuban food would feel about this Italian French guy being celebrated in the film for their speciality, but I’m going to guess that they would sign a waiver. Unlike Spanglish and Butter, the agenda felt like love-love of the food, the people, the heritage. It felt like Favreau honored, respected and did not use people as tropes or Disneyfied culture. Ethnicity felt organic and real-not the message. Food is universal and a bridge between cultures. People were just people in the movie. One of the few times that a movie understood how to effectively use John Leguizamo because most of the time, movies don’t know what to do with him. Chef is a must see!