Served warm, but not especially tasty

Too much simmering in 'What's Cooking?'

In this story: Seasonal thanks, tensions Too many ingredients RELATED STORIES, SITES

By Paul Tatara
CNN.com Reviewer

(CNN) -- Gurinder Chadha's "What's Cooking?" begs to be described as "Altmanesque," and that's Chadha's deep misfortune.

Robert Altman's influence will be apparent in every rambling ensemble piece made between now and the end of time simply by virtue of his getting there first and doing it better than anybody. What other directors fail to notice, though, is that Altman himself blows it as often as he pulls it off; it's very easy to make a mess out of something like this.

"What's Cooking?" follows the miscommunicating antics of four Los Angeles families during a tumultuous Thanksgiving holiday. Chadha employs the same verbose, cross-cutting format that holds Altman's movies together ... or forces them into misshapen lumps, depending on the breaks.

Chadha draws decent performances from most of her large cast, including some young actors who may have bright futures ahead of them. She just doesn't have the directing chops to orchestrate something so sprawling.

Seasonal thanks, tensions

This is meant to be a knotty valentine to the American melting pot. The opening credits even sardonically employ the national anthem.

Chadha, who co-wrote the occasionally amusing script with Paul Mayeda Berges, establishes the playing field in each household, then bounces their similarities off each other until everyone is shouting across the turkey and mashed potatoes. There are so many people running around that it's easiest to break the introductions down into family units, although assorted friends and relatives join the parade as the holiday progresses:

• The Williamses: An African-American family that's struggling with its political identity. Audrey (Alfre Woodard) is forced to cook a tension-filled meal with her domineering mother-in-law, Grace (Ann Weldon), peering over her shoulder. Audrey's husband, Ronald (Dennis Haysbert), is an over-worked spin doctor for California's ultraconservative governor. Their son, Michael (Eric K. George), is so disenchanted with his father's work that he's staying away from the family during the holiday.

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Like every other group of characters in the movie, The Williams clan will eventually be at each other's throats while company looks on in astonishment.

• The Seelings: This family gets the biggest laughs. They'll also want to kill each other by the time the third act rolls around. Stereotypical Jewish mother Ruth (Lainie Kazan, who always plays the stereotypical Jewish mother) is forced to endure her disconnected, dachshund-toting husband (Maury Chaykin), her daughter Rachel's (Kyra Sedgwick) lesbianism and the presence of Rachel's soft-spoken lover, Carla (Julianna Margulies).

Ruth, too, is cooking like a fiend -- there's just as much affectionate food preparation in this movie as there is in the somewhat similar "Soul Food" (1997), and that's saying something. You practically have to loosen your belt while you watch it.

• The Avilas: Elizabeth (Mercedes Ruehl) is a Spanish school teacher who recently broke up with her two-timing husband, Javier (Victor Rivers). Her son, Anthony (Douglas Spain, now a much more assured actor than he was in 1997's "Star Maps"), has asked dad over for dinner, not knowing that mom has also invited her secret lover to join the festivities. Uh-oh... Daughter Gina (Isidra Vega) throws another log on the fire by showing up with her Vietnamese boyfriend, Jimmy Nguyen (Will Yun Lee), in tow. The Avila kids can't think of anything to say to Jimmy except that they're big Bruce Lee fans, never mind that Jimmy isn't even Chinese.

Ruehl gives the best performance in the movie. She has a way of injecting the most volatile scene with a bemused sense of humor. She's an exceptionally graceful, witty actress.

• The Nguyens: Immigrants from Vietnam, the Nguyens' Thanksgiving dinner is an esoteric affair featuring a turkey that's half a conventional American bird and half covered in peppers, Vietnamese-style. Trinh (Joan Chen), is the extended clan's surprisingly young mother. Her college student son, Jimmy, claims to be skipping the gathering this year because he's too busy at school. But, as you already know, he's actually having dinner over at the Avilas'. Daughter Jenny (Kristy Wu) is too Americanized for her parents' taste. Mom and Dad are in an unconvincing uproar over her hip clothing and the condom they found in her coat pocket. Gary (Jimmy Pham), the family's high school-age son, also has a gun hidden under his bed that will come into play near the end of the film.

Chadha badly fumbles this family's situation. "Socially significant" moments arise as if she thinks the movie isn't dramatic enough when people are simply arguing at the dinner table about their private lives. She's right, of course, but a series of "guns are bad" postulations fail to correct anything.

Too many ingredients

There are laughs to be found in all of this, many of which center around the somewhat faceless younger children. But too many cooks spoil the movie: Chadha tries to keep so many balls in the air at once, she can't generate any steam in the individual stories.

As soon as something earth-shattering happens, you have to pick up and move on to somebody else's problem. It gets frustrating after a while, because some of the plotlines stand a chance of generating effective drama.

The relationship between Sedgwick and Margulies suffers the most. One would hope that Margulies will be able to find meatier roles rolls than this one in the near future, as her character is dangerously close to generic. It would be a real shame if she shot herself in the career when she left "ER" and all the money that NBC was waving in her face. She's a pleasant, engaging screen presence, and is capable of much more than she's given to do in this movie.

The performances vary wildly. Kazan is very funny. But Chakin, who's normally reliable, is caught Acting every time he's on camera. Woodard also overdoes it to a surprising degree; she looks as if she's about to have a stroke on a couple of occasions. And Wu and Pham are both patently awful, screeching and carrying on as if they're in a school play.

You may want to see "What's Cooking?" on video, where you can fast-forward through the flab and get right to the heart of things. It may seem like leftovers from several different movies, but you're bound to find something to chew on.

There's profanity in "What's Cooking?", talk of sex, and some fleeting nudity. Not bad, overall -- not all that good, either. Rated PG-13. 106 minutes.

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