Food For The Heart (aka Hungry
Bachelors Club/1999)
Picture: C
Sound: C+ Extras: C Film: B-
Two women (Jorja Fox & Suzanne Mora) love to cook and
when they get together to do so, reflect on their lives and where they are
going next in Gregory Ruzzin’s Food For The Heart (1999), an independent
production that adapts a novel about relationships that is more laid back than
you might expect. Limited melodrama,
few histrionics and mostly convincing performances throughout make this a good
little picture.
Delmar (Fox) wants to launch a restaurant, while Hortense
(Mora) wants to get married to the man she loves (Paul Provenza), but he wants
to wait until he has the financial resources to do so. The former is helped along by Cadillac
restoration obsessee Moses Grady (Bill Nunn), while the later has other factors
to consider. Though not preachy,
gimmicky, or formulaic, the film may be too laid back for its own good,
depending on your preference. It is a
bit rough and its low-budget shows at times, but I also give it credit for not
buying into the cliché of recent dramas about food as if serving it in a fancy
way will solve everything and calm everyone down. This is why it works when it does and is worth a look.
The full frame 1.33 X 1 image is softer than it should be
for a recent production, shot well enough by cinematographer Robert F.
Smith. The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
fares better, but has not surrounds.
Extras include two trailers and ten deleted scenes that are not bad, but
a featurette would have been nice. The
cast is also pretty good.
- Nicholas Sheffo
