How can the cook hate his job? He studied for it, now he´s there running a big kitchen, relaxed and taking a break when he wants to.
To me it looks fantastic if you´re into the food business! Tiring alright, but not less than owning a hotdog caravan, don´t you think?
Because he’s working in an industrial kitchen (a factory maybe, or even a hospital) . He went to catering college, and doubtless graduated full of dreams and aspirations, and slowly the inexorable burdens and responsibilities of life as a young father wore him down. Just look at his house, his car, his obvious lack of material wealth. What stands him apart, as Wendy tells her daughter, is that he has never quite given up, he still believes in that spark of light at the end of the tunnel, hence the caravan. He has a wealth of aspirations. He doesn’t even express jealousy over Aubrey’s new restaurant, because he’s grateful for what he has. It’s been a while since I saw this film, and I loved it (again), as I love all Leigh…One question, however, to all his fans, in many of his films, there is a(n) conciliatory/explanatory/reconciliatory scene between characters, invariably in a suburban back garden. Am I missing something, or is there a hidden significance that I have missed. I know that his films are always full of tricks & in-jokes, but this one escapes me…
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe...
I think the back garden is a universal; it's disarmingly familiar.
My house interior doesn't look like theirs today (although I have lived similarly), but I still have the plastic deck chairs and a moldy old shed.
The practical sister says something like, "It's hot out here, innit?" near the end of the film. I know EXACTLY the feeling of a brow furling British summer she's talking about, and a bolt of resonance, of realism went right through me like few films ever have.
It was a nice twist to go from showing him as an ineffectual, almost Andy Capp-ike figure, to his having all this authority and high standards at his job. But would the manager of such a large kitchen really be as poor as he seems to be?
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It was a nice twist to go from showing him as an ineffectual, almost Andy Capp-ike figure, to his having all this authority and high standards at his job. But would the manager of such a large kitchen really be as poor as he seems to be?The answer is 'yes'. Unless you work as a chef at a high class establishment you're unlikely to be terribly well paid. My family worked in the service industry for any years and they were paid below the national average income even though they did at various stages have some degree of responsibility. Anyway, assuming the character is still alive (in Leigh's fictional world) and he's still living in the same property he's probably sitting on a nice little earner if he wants to sell up and retire on a caravan bearing in mind the value of London, particularly North London, properties these days.
Lots of people study for jobs, at university or trade school, and end up unhappy in those occupations.
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