Eugénie (Juliette Binoche) is a cook who is under the employ of Dodin Bouffant (Benoît Magimel), a gourmand with a lovely estate in the French countryside.  Through their many years together, Dodin has fallen in love with Eugénie, though she continually rejects his proposals of marriage but will sometimes entertain his nightly advances.  One summer, they begin preparations for a visit from a prince and Dodin wants the menu to feature the very humble and rustic Pot-au-feu; a dish comprised of boiled meat and vegetables.  Eugénie falls ill, and unable to cook, she reevaluates what it means to live and to love.  Dodin, in turn, needs to find a renewed passion in life absent from Eugénie. 

Trần Anh Hùng writes and directs The Taste of Things, a beautiful romance that premiered at the Cannes Film Festival to great acclaim under its original title Le Pat-au-Feu.  Re-titled and released in France as La Passion de Dodin Bouffant, the 134-minute film was shortlisted for Best International Feature at the Academy Awards in a somewhat controversial decision having been put forward by France over Anatomy of a Fall (2023).  IFC Films handed the US release of the film, holding it to bow over the Valentine’s Day frame, a smart move given the swooning subject matter, earning a $1200 per screen average across its 500 locations. 

Sharing stories and sharing meals are some of the oldest traditions of our species.  It is only natural then that filmmakers have oftentimes found themselves fascinated by food with one of the earliest examples of the importance of a meal demonstrated by Charlie Chaplin in The Gold Rush (1925).  The Taste of Things features far more delectable dishes than a boiled shoe, however, and Gabriel Axel’s Babette’s Feast (1987) comes immediately to mind when thinking about Hùng’s latest, but so too does the importance and intentionality of a showcase dish as seen in Stanley Tucci and Campbell Scott’s Big Night (1996), and then the passion and love of food that is passed down from generations brought to screen wonderfully in Jon Favreau’s Chef (2014).   

Those films, despite being shorter than The Taste of Things by at least 20 minutes, are all very story-forward.  Hùng instead opens his film how Axel ends his; in the kitchen preparing an elaborate meal.  It is a near-wordless scene as Eugénie and Dodin dance around the kitchen with their two young apprentices, Violette (Galatea Bellugi) and Pauline (Bonnie Chagneau-Ravoire), the latter of the two already identified as one with an exceptional palate.  Hùng places an enormous amount of trust in his cast and his script during this opening gambit, forgoing not only traditional dialogue but also a score opting instead for the clinking of cookware and the boiling of water to provide the atmosphere.  The incredible success of this sequence also flows from Jonathan Ricquebourg’s cinematography which beautifully captures the action with warm rays of sunlight coming in from the open widows, and the footage is assembled by Mario Battistel in such a way that we are able to follow along with the many dishes being prepared in a coherent way, whetting our appetites both in the traditional sense of the word, but also making us hungry for some details about this story.  We already begin to piece together some dynamics watching the four at work, so we are not bored but our curiosity is piqued in the same way as a warm waft from a kitchen can be cause for excitement. 

Simply put, The Taste of Things would not work without its stellar cast.  One half of that team is Binoche as Eugénie, a role in which she excels.  For a film that is largely without a plot, it falls on Hùng and his cast to help formulate these characters from so little raw ingredients; a challenge which both are up to meet.  As Eugénie, Binoche gives the woman a steely coolness that we are nothing short of in awe over her making it easy to understand why Dodin continues to pursue her after all these years.  It is not just for her skill in the kitchen, but she is a dominating and powerful figure in the film – a nice going against the grain of what we would expect given the time period – but she is still warm and welcoming, too.  Binoche brings a sense of comfort to the world, a steady hand on the whisk to ensure the sauce never breaks or burns, but impressively The Taste of Things is able to adapt to her absence as many films are unable to do after placing such importance on a figure who departs the story early; one needs to only look to Killers of the Flower Moon as an example of how drastically a character’s absence can greatly shift the tone of the second half of a film.  Eugénie’s absence is certainly noticed here, but her presence is still felt as she is what inspires the characters of the film so they do not seem totally lost without her as they seek to find her spirit. 

Opposite her is Magimel as Dodin.  Much has been said in the press cycle about the relationship they once shared, ending in 2003 after many years.  Despite this seemingly inspired casting choice, the pair came to the film after a series of dropouts brought them together in a twist of fate that seems only possible in the movies.  It certainly adds a bit of depth to the dynamic and we believe immediately that these two have actually established a shorthand with each other and are not just reading lines and feining comfort with each other, but notably, the casting is not showy about this shared history.  Rather, it adds to the texture of the film; in its antique setting, this decades-spanning relationship feels at home in the architecture of the scene.  It existed long before Ricquebourg’s camera began to join them in their dance of preparing a meal. 

The opening sequence is filmed with such incredible effortlessness.  There is no fear in this team as they move from prep table to stovetop to oven, and with dialogue only tied to the progression of the meal, we begin to see the dynamics take shape.  Dodin has but two loves in the world, the love of food and the love of Eugénie, and those loves come together in young Pauline who is poised to be their protégée in the kitchen; another overlap with real life as Binoche and Magimel have a daughter together. In the film, Pauline is not their daughter, but rather the daughter of one the farming families in town, but she is training under Eugénie so that when the woman untimely passes, it is Pauline who helps to keep Dodin inspired and connected to the world of food and fine dining as the Eugénie’s palate and passion lives on through her apprentice. 

One of the more fascinating moments comes near the halfway point when Dodin prepares an engagement meal for Eugénie who is still recovering in her room upstairs. The work in the kitchen is still incredibly precise and the dishes are extraordinary technical achievements, but there is a slight change in editing and shot choices that really makes you feel the labor involved when Dodin is cooking vs the effortlessness which the opening was filmed with. It is also the sequence in which Hùng allows us to enjoy the dishes as well. Until now, the final plating was viewed by the camera as an afterthought preferring to witness instead the work of the meal instead of the enjoyment. Those courses were served to the hungry guests, but we were waiting to get back into the kitchen to see the magic happen. This meal is different. Ricquebourg follows Pauline up the stairs and down the corridor, framed tightly so the dish is just out of view and each subsequent trip to Eugénie’s room feels longer than the last, but the wait is rewarded when we get to marvel at Dodin’s creations and feel the excitement and delight with Eugénie when she discovers the ring hidden in the dessert. 

The Taste of Things is one of the truest examples of a slice-of-life film, even though we never forget we are watching a film. Despite its beautiful, sweeping imagery, and the swooning emotions throughout, The Taste of Things remains a very difficult film to discuss on a narrative level because it is so simple. The story itself, what little there is, starts around the quarter mark of its over-two-hour runtime with the arrival of a letter from the prince saying that he will visit the estate for a meal. Had Hùng not led his creative teams to craft such a beautiful environment for this story to play out, audiences would certainly have revolted at the end as we never get to see the formerly titular pat-au-feu safe for a few brief moments which might as well be nothing in comparison to the other labors in the kitchen that do capture focus. Still, for those who can suspend, not their disbelief, but their expectation of what a romance, a drama, and a story can be, The Taste of Things will be held in their minds as the masterpiece it is. How lucky, then, are we that it can be returned to time and time again because unlike even the finest of meals we have experienced whose flavors may linger but eventually fade in time, the permanency of film will allow us to savor this story and make this sensation last; a sad bit of irony given that it tracks Dodin on his own realization of the fleeting nature of life. C’est la vie.