Burnt

“When I list my regrets, you’re one of them. I say: ​‘Simone, you’re a les­bian, why did you sleep with Adam Jones?’”

So says an Evening Stan­dard restau­rant crit­ic played by Uma Thur­man in the most ludi­crous­ly dis­pos­able of roles. She exists to tell us that alpha chef, Adam Jones (Bradley Coop­er) is so potent as a sex­u­al being that he can swing not just les­bians, but les­bians that are paid for their crit­i­cal fac­ul­ties. Hav­ing relaid this point, Uma Thur­man is ush­ered off, and is only seen once again, very briefly enjoy­ing Adam’s turbot.

You might rea­son­ably assume that Simone’s line of dia­logue is a highlight/​low­light, but it accu­rate­ly con­veys the pitch of the screen­play for the whole 100 min­utes of John Wells’ absurd film. We meet Adam as he is fin­ish­ing self-imposed penance of shuck­ing one mil­lion oys­ters. The crime? Mys­te­ri­ous mis­de­meanours in Paris three years ago. Adam rem­i­nisces about work­ing in Jean-Luc’s kitchen with a wit­ty remorse that would pass as hard-boiled in a noir and over­boiled every­where else: ​“I was good… Some­times I was even as good as I thought I was.”

He saun­ters out of the job at that exact total and takes a train to Lon­don, sport­ing a rock star ensem­ble: jeans, jack­et, shades. Why’s he come to Lon­don? Well, he’s worn out his wel­come on the Parisian culi­nary scene and is on a mis­sion to get his third Miche­lin star in a new Euro­pean cap­i­tal. All char­ac­ters com­mu­ni­cate in expo­si­tion and all expo­si­tion is in ser­vice of mythol­o­gis­ing one of the fol­low­ing aspects of Adam Jones: his crazy past in Paris, his earth-shat­ter­ing impact on every­one he has ever met, his unpar­al­leled bril­liance as a chef, his now renounced addic­tions (snort­ing, sniff­ing, inject­ing, drink­ing, smok­ing, lick­ing yel­low toads and women).

Bradley Coop­er is one of the most dis­arm­ing actors in the busi­ness. The secret premise of Burnt might as well be ​‘how much bull­shit can we sad­dle his char­ac­ter with and still have audi­ences root­ing for him?’ Like some bizarre fra­ter­ni­ty ini­ti­a­tion that Coop­er game­ly com­mits to, Burnt presents a lead man whose sup­posed genius in the kitchen gives him a free pass to com­mu­ni­cate almost explo­sive­ly in foul-mouthed tirades. (Coop­er based his char­ac­ter­i­sa­tion around a com­bo of Mar­cus Ware­ing, Gor­don Ram­sey, and Mar­co Pierre White.)

The writ­ing is laugh­able (But Steven Knight, you wrote Locke!), the sto­ry pre­dictable, the use of food­ie set­tings osten­ta­tious and all sup­port­ing char­ac­ters devoid of agency. Daniel Brühl as smit­ten maître d’ Tony and Sien­na Miller as feisty sous chef, Helene are there to enable Adam’s jour­ney from psy­chot­ic con­trol freak to sen­si­tive human being. It occurred to no one to sub­stan­ti­ate their love and loy­al­ty with per­son­al depth. In the sto­ry as in the kitchen, the only appetite that mat­ters is Adam’s.

Any­one who makes an informed deci­sion to watch Burnt might want to bring a bin­go-card of dra­mat­ic clich­es to tick off dur­ing the run­time. To whit: a chef irate­ly throw­ing crock­ery, big-dog rival­ry, not to men­tion inside indus­try burns (“You’re serv­ing seared tuna? What hap­pened to your self-respect?”). The full dish could nev­er be described as bal­anced or tasty but its bizarre flavour – to quote a news­pa­per head­line with­in the film – shocks and delights.