The Food Guide to Love (2013)

140 Character Movie Review – #140RVW

Dublin-set rom-com won’t win awards or set bar for originality, but leads Richard Coyle & Leonor Watling are beyond charming & it’s funny…

Spoiler-free Movie Review of The Food Guide to Love:

Being a huge fan of the now defunct BBC show Coupling, I’d watch Richard Coyle in just about anything. (Although I’m not going to start watching Crossbones, NBC’s silly-looking pirate drama with John Malkovich as Blackbeard. That thing has early cancellation written all over it.) As neurotic, sex-obsessed accountant Jeff Murcock on that comedy, Coyle was charming, funny and simply fun to watch. Sadly, he seems a bit stuck in TV, having trouble breaking into films only in small roles.

The Food Guide to Love is a feature, although everything about it screams straight-to-video. Not because it’s not competent – it’s quite good. There’s just an overabundance of rom-coms and only the ones with big stars seem to have legs. Coyle and co-star Leonor Watling deserve the attention, but I fear this little indie film won’t garner much.

Shot in Dublin by Spanish writer/directors Dominic Harari & Teresa Pelegri, it’s a good looking movie – great footage of the city, even if the story really could be set just about anywhere (it was written for London).  The opening titles are nearly as long as the cast list, as this is one of those films that seems to be sponsored and funded by 30 different film agencies, production companies & distributors, but that’s ok because they do a nice job of setting up the main character of Coyle as Oliver Byrne, a hip and popular food writer.

Seemingly incapable of maintaining a relationship beyond 6 months, Oliver meets cute with Bibiana (Watling), a smart and politically active Spaniard who is not impressed by his fame or with what she considers his shallow interests. There’s lots of great and funny material here, and if this film starred Hugh Grant or Anne Hathaway or similar, it could be a hit. It may be just as well that it doesn’t, as that imaginary film certainly wouldn’t cast Irish actors Bronagh Gallagher & Simon Delaney in good if too small roles.

The best moments of the film actually don’t concern the love story at all, but focus on the relationship between Oliver and his parents. I actually found a few of these scenes very moving and they have stuck with me.

The film is good if not laced with originality, and really the only flaw in it is a somewhat jarring tendency to skip forward in time. You may get three scenes set over a single meal, then zoom forward a few years. It’s a little odd; feels like they could have lengthened the film a little bit to insert a few transitional scenes. But it’s a minor point; the length of the film is just right in terms of keeping your interest. Recommended.

Poster:

Trailer:

Bechdel Test:

Fail

The Representation Test Score: B (9 pts)

(http://therepresentationproject.org/grading-hollywood-the-representation-test/)