"Soul Kitchen", a fresh and delicious light comedy

Soul Kitchen

After seeing the very solid, intense and heavy fuelled dramas "Head-On" (Gegen die Wand) and "The Edge of Heaven" (Auf der Anderen Seite), I was really curious to see what would be the approach of Fatih Akin to comedy, his first being "Soul Kitchen", a lightweight, love-and-life story located in the docks of Hamburg, with a gastronomical pretext.

We could say the movie is a fast-paced feel-good comedy, and if we scratch a bit beyond the surface, the plot is not very original and some questions towards the end are resolved in a quite unbelievable way. But by the time these "issues" may arrive, you should be irresistibly attracted by the "delicious menu" this very peculiar restaurant is offering you.

The actors are capable to give their characters some genuine and hard-to-find charm to their roles. The rhythm of the film is excellent, dynamic and engaging. The way it is filmed and a few twists in the plot serve the purpose of adding a slight touch of surrealism. Something that also applies to the locations and, of course, to the soundtrack (the groovy and interesting music is also an important actor in the film).

An intelligent, not groundbreaking, but fresh and particularly charming movie.

SCORE: 6,5/10