With virtuoso filmmaking on display, Ruizpalacios’ mesmerising fourth feature creates explosive drama out of the inner workings of a busy F&B kitchen in Times Square.

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I’ve been following the career trajectory of Alonso Ruizpalacios since his terrific debut feature Gueros (2014), and so far he has been pulling the rabbit out of the hat with the kind of dazzling confidence associated with the great masters of cinema. 

La cocina comes after Museo (2018) and A Cop Movie (2021), and I would consider him one of the most exciting filmmakers working today. 

Starring Rooney Mara and Raul Briones as Julia the waitress and Pedro the chef respectively, La cocina resembles more of an ensemble piece of many moving parts, though the core of the narrative is told through the passive-aggressive relationship between the two lover-colleagues. 

They are a world unto themselves, best expressed in a poetic scene of them staring at each other through a lobster tank, or when they make love in a meat freezer. 

Outside of their internal world, a busy kitchen is inflected with bustling energy and heightened tensions that Ruizpalacios conducts like a maestro. 

“Tell me your dream.”

We are at The Grill, an eatery in Times Square that looks prim and proper, but whatever transpires in the kitchen may be best described as organised chaos. 

In a stunning example of virtuoso filmmaking, Ruizpalacios gives us a restless long take that goes around the kitchen, out into the dining area and then back into the hellhole. 

With flustered and impatient chefs and waitresses shouting over each other in annoyance, we hear the relentless beat of a receipt machine spitting out slips of food orders—so obvious as a metaphor for the enslavement of the disenfranchised to the capitalist machine. 

Yet, while La cocina may be dealing with the inner workings of a hectic kitchen, the film goes much deeper into existential territory than one might give it credit for, asking its characters to think for themselves. 

In this melting pot of nationalities, all struggling to make ends meet while striving for the elusive American dream, Ruizpalacios poses the question: don’t we all want to disappear someday to somewhere, away from the burden of dreams?

Grade: A

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