Eden: What a Cook-Tease

 

The movies could use more performers who look as if they'd just stepped off the opera stage. We need more faces and bodies with gravity and emotional heft. Unfortunately, as a shy, fat, virginal master chef, Josef Ostendorf doesn't sing a note in this German mediocro-comedy. He just miserably pines for a married waitress named Eden (Charlotte Roche). And she, possessed of a jealous husband and adorable daughter with Down syndrome, does everything possible to encourage his crush, since his lovingly photographed, dripping delicacies bring her to the verge of orgasm and restore a spark in her unhappy marriage. Then she has the nerve to be surprised, the heartless little cook-tease, when the chef declares his feelings and the husband objects. (Not that she'd sleep with the loveless gourmand, because that would be wrong, so much worse than leading him along!) A better movie, like The Blue Angel, would turn this situation to tragedy. Even a halfway-decent flick would allow the chef to have his revenge by, say, serving the mother her adorable daughter as delectable bratwurst. ("Was ist diese köstliche Fleisch?") Not that the Saw dudes need any fresh ideas, but I'm just sayin'.