Recently got a rec to check out a Thai movie, HUNGER (Netflix), about a street cook who works under a celebrity chef. From the food porn to the incisive themes about income inequality to the Thai culture, HUNGER really got under my skin. I loved it.
In the movie, Aoy works as a cook at her family’s restaurant. After being scouted by Tone, a sous-chef at Hunger, a catering restaurant, she has the chance to work for celebrity Chef Paul. Doing whatever it takes, she fights her way to a position of importance on his staff and beyond, seeking to make her mark as a great chef herself and become “special.” Only, being special has its cost. The more one is driven to succeed, the more humanity must be paid.
There are heavy themes of income inequality here. What is happiness, who has it and who doesn’t, and in some countries, it seems the rich have everything while almost everyone else must scrape by. The lesson here is extreme wealth is dehumanizing–one glance at America’s clownish, psychopathic billionaires is enough convince me this is 100% true–whether one is born or otherwise lucks into it, like most of Hunger’s clientele, or gives up everything to claw their way to get it, like Chef Paul. By the end, we must decide if wealth is luxury or having the simple things that really matter.
Chef Paul is a highlight of the movie. He’s a serious bastard, an absolute perfectionist, and he’s sympathetic while also serving as an ideal antagonist for Aoy, as they want the same thing, and he is what she will become if she continues on her path. Aoy is sympathetic if a bit shallow as a character, defined far more strongly by the wonderful colorful secondary characters than by how she is written and depicted. Her ascent and the distance this creates from everyone she cares about struck me as a little contrived, another small downside for me.
Overall, HUNGER is engaging, beautiful, features a lot of great characters, and tells a story with ambitious themes and meaning. I enjoyed this one a lot, it was a great surprise.
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