The first full trailer for Burnt is here, and it makes it abundantly clear that megastar Bradley Cooper and director John Wells are entering into Hollywood’s tortured-genius-chef genre. (See also: Jon Favreau’s comedy Chef, Lasse Hallström’s Oprah-produced The Hundred-Foot Journey, and—so far the best of the category—Campbell Scott and Stanley Tucci’s Big Night.) Cooper plays Adam Jones, a disgraced chef who emerges from a drug binge with the intention of starting “the best restaurant in the world.”
The trailer suggests the movie might have some interesting insights into the psychology of a world-class chef—in addition to the addictive tendencies, there’s sadism (“I want people to sit at that table and be sick with longing”), alienation (“the kitchen’s the only place that I’ve ever felt like I really belonged”), and insecurity (Jones admits that he’s striving for “immortality”). But there are also enough Gordon Ramsay-esque clichés in this glimpse at Burnt to make me raise my eyebrows: Jones sweeps things violently off of tables, throws plates, and is explicitly compared to a rockstar by another character. With supporting roles played by Emma Thompson, Uma Thurman, Sienna Miller, and The Americans’ Matthew Rhys, plus it-girl Lily James (Cinderella) and it-boy Jamie Dornan (aka Christian Grey), Burnt at least has enough star power to intrigue audiences. We’ll see whether it has anything interesting to say about haute cuisine when it opens on Oct. 23.
