Burnt, annoyingly, combines lots of close up shots of delicious looking food being made, with a generally uninspiring film. Bradley Cooper plays a burnt out chef who decides to make his comeback. We hit all the notes of this broad cinematic archetype. There are the shouting matches in the kitchen. The substance abuse and recovery. The ill-advised relationship. The therapy. The deifying view that it’s ok to be an arsehole because you’re doing something important. The thing is, and maybe I live in a bubble, but having met a surprising number of chefs, none of them actually seem to be, I don’t know, like this? They’ve all been very friendly people who, from my vantage point, treat their fellow chefs in the kitchen with respect and humility. But this is what we expect in these films, so this is what we are given. It feels hard to believe that anyone was truly that passionate about making this film, but I suppose they were. It’s no substitute for actually going to one of those restaurants, and my god I’m glad that I do that more than I watch films of this calibre, but hey - those shots of delicious looking food are the next best thing on a quiet night with a screen.