The Taste of Things La passion de Dodin Bouffant

Synopsis

Juliette Binoche stars alongside her real-life ex Benoît Magimel in this sumptuous romantic drama, about a famed gourmet (Magimel) in 1880s France whose twenty-year relationship with his private chef (Binoche) has mellowed into a soulmate bond. He desperately wants to marry her. She’s skeptical, preferring their current arrangement to a conventional partnership. The thing that keeps them together is their obsession with food: preparing it, eating it, talking about it. So what better way for him to convince her to settle down than to cook her a meal?

Director Anh Hung Tran (The Scent of Green Papaya) combines culinary and sensual delight in the tradition of the best cinematic “food porn,” opening with a 40-minute cooking sequence that’s as rich and mouthwatering as a pat of butter in a sizzling hot pan.