A Taste of Hunger

A Taste of Hunger

Sweet. Sour. Salt. Fat. Heat. These are the elements, whether literal while preparing a dish like those made by a “Game of Thrones” master chef played by Nikolaj Coster Waldau or metaphorical, that can be combined to create something sublime in relationships and life generally; or disastrously so if the wrong ones are thrown together.

In the Danish film “A Taste of Hunger,” Carsten (Coster-Waldau) and his wife, Maggi (Katrine Greis-Rosenthal), hunger for great food and an even bigger Michelin star to validate their achievement and secure their restaurant’s future success. The movie moves back and forth through time, split into chapters from their sweet beginning to a sour betrayal, and the heated climax when all of the elements come together.

The opening is delicious, with Carsten crafting a true work of culinary art under Maggi’s admiring eye, so beautiful and carefully plated we can almost smell it through the screen. She eats it, praising his combination of all five tastes but suggesting that maybe they should present them unassembled so customers can put them together themselves; also she has an idea about lighting for their new restaurant that would make it more elegant and romantic.

Then there’s Sweet, a flashback to the night they met when he was catering a party and she was a guest who wandered into his kitchen. The couple’s immediate connection is palpable in these early scenes and still evident years later as one night in their restaurant they’re about to share a private moment so intimate that the only interruption they’ll allow forces him to scramble back to the kitchen: There is “a solo diner.” They’re convinced he’s the secret Michelin scout they’ve been waiting for; everything must be perfect.

But something goes wrong with their signature dish. Catastrophe! Without that Michelin star, says Carsten: “We will lose everything.” So Maggi races off into the night, promising to somehow find the mystery solo diner even though she doesn’t know who or where he is and make him give them another chance.

She has a second reason to panic. She’s intercepted a message to Carsten telling him his wife loves someone else. We go back in time for Sour, when her affair began. This is also where the recipe for “A Taste of Hunger” goes from haute cuisine to just cuisine. The hors d’oeuvre had all these delicious details that made you want more; but once we get into the main course, it becomes less satisfying.

As Maggi frantically runs around Copenhagen trying to find the solo diner and the source of the message (which sets off more flashback chapters labeled Salt, Fat, and Heat, though they’re less and less accurate as categories and illuminating as revelations), what fueled this story in the beginning passion for food, dream, each other doesn’t feel so lively anymore when we learn all about its ingredients.

During the first part of the movie, Coster-Waldau and Greis-Rosenthal are at their best as we watch them fall in love, start a restaurant together, and see how much they still mean to each other in the present; trying to make the most of stolen moments alone. However, nothing after that is as alive.

The amount of conflict that happens during this story does not match up with its intended emotional impact it just feels flat. What’s more is that these flashbacks get choppier and more distracting. Maggi’s deconstruction of Carsten’s dish was better for the restaurant than deconstructing the plot for this film.

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