Rating: 
Summary: Mostly Martha is All Terrific
Review: In foreign language flicks you always have to worry about whether the sub-titles will follow the action appropriately. In Mostly Martha the pacing is perfect. You read the lines just as they are saying them. The funny parts remain funny, the sad parts, sad. I would recommend this to anyone who wants to see a well acted, well directed, great ending movie. If you liked The Big Night, you'll LOVE Mostly Martha. Go see it!
Rating: 
Summary: WONDERFUL FILM
Review: JUST A FINE FILM, WITH A GREAT CASTE. NO OVERACTING, ESPECIALLY LIKED THE MUSIC. A FEEL GOOD MOVIE.
Rating:
Summary: I Love You, Ingrid - I mean Martha
Review: This is the tale of a repressed and neurotic German chef who just happens to be stunningly attractive. This woman is so close to the edge in her dealings with people that were she not the second best cook in Hamburg she would have been fired and locked up long ago. Into this life comes her niece, embittered by having been orphaned in a car accident, and an Italian chef, perceived by Martha to have been installed by the owner of the establishment to replace her.This lightweight plot moves from the ridiculous to the sublime by showing the internal mettle of these mismatched characters and how they are changed during and by their daily interaction. Ultimately, the little girl comes to see her aunt as her savior, and the kindly Italian wins both their hearts. In a scene superior to any modern American film, the dueling chefs cook up a love feast far more sensual than any full monty, grope and groan, or rock and roll act in decades. One would have to go back more than half a century to films such as Casablanca and For Whom the Bell Tolls to find such delicate yet compelling sexuality. This is a really fine film.
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Summary: Proves that Obsessive/Compulsiveness has a good side ...
Review: It's a pleasure to get into Martha's forgivably neurotic obsessions -- you'll see she has good reason. You won't want her to change one bit! The time spent in the kitchen is priceless and watching the food get plated just makes you want to go out to a good dinner (or cook one!). It's a cast full of individual personalities and everyone plays their part splendidly. A movie I intend to see again.
Rating:
Summary: Delicious!
Review: This is much, much more than another great food movie--although it's definitely got some wonderful food happening. What's impressive here is the directorial restraint--the audience is allowed to decide for themselves what Martha's background might have been to see her into adulthood so detached from people that her entire life has become her career. The kitchen is where Martha lives; it is her dominion. The food she produces (unlike her life) is flawless. Beyond the confines of the restaurant, things are random, uncontrollable; nothing coalesces the way her perfect recipes do.
With the arrival of her orphaned niece into her life and a second (Italian) chef at the restaurant, life, in spite of Martha's best efforts, begins to leak in around the edges of her fiercely maintained control--of herself and of her kitchen. There are moments of great yet gentle humor and moments of confused pain as emotions begin to grow in Martha--visibly an alien experience.
This is a wise film, filled with insight and humor; the soundtrack is wonderful and the resolution is immensely satisfying.
Not to be missed. Most highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Mostly Marvelous
Review: Martha is, in the words of her restaurant's owner, "the second best chef" in Hamburg, Germany. Her reaction to that comment, which she voices to a colleague in the kitchen, is "second best? Why second best?" That's Martha (driven, thin-skinned, perfectionist, egocentric) and that's the movie (quick bursts of droll comedy within a quite conventional storyline). Other good things about the film: the cinematography is terrific, particularly in the contrast between the often drab or snowy exteriors of the city and the sumptuous shots of food in preparation, displayed, and served; the music is refreshing and off-beat, from Volare to jazz-infused to classical; the energy, spontaneity, and sparks between Martha and her new sous-chef Mario make their reluctant romance both believable and inevitable. Director Nettlebeck also has a deft, subtle approach to critical plot points. The death of Martha's sister is played entirely through Martha's reactions (that title again), her face during the telephone call that delivers the news in the noisy peak of rush hour at the restaurant, her wait at the hosptial, and -- then back home after nothing more can be done -- her breakdown as she listens to the answering machine message from her sister saying she and her daughter are running late. In an equally effective sequence, after weeks of stubborn battles, the bond between the so similar woman and child is first portrayed through a family video that the two watch consecutively and in silence. Mostly Martha could stand a little tighter editing to improve its pacing, a sub-plot about Martha's downstairs neighbor simply disappears two-thirds of the way through the film, and -- of course -- there are few surprises in the familiar plot. But taking every step of the expected journey is a sensuous pleasure and makes Martha well worth seeing.
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Summary: Chef-d'oeuvre!
Review: On September 11, 2002, I caught this movie after attending an ecumenical memorial service for the victims of last year's attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon. I couldn't face watching any more talking heads on TV "re-analyzing" that horrible event or debating war with Iraq or whatever might occupy their febrile minds on such a tragic anniversary. Instead I went to the movies. Even we art house habitues need our escapist entertainment, and I had heard good things about "Mostly Martha"--a German import about a perfectionist chef in Hannover, whose ordered world is turned upside down by the introduction into her life of her eight-year old orphaned niece...and a warm, life affirming Italian sous-chef who has a life lesson or two of his own to offer. If this sounds like formula, well, it is. But it works. The script (in German with good English subtitles) is intelligent, the acting way above average, and the cinematography is impressive. Martina Gedeck is just about perfect in the title role. She's a bit reminiscent, in appearance and affect, of the American television actress Kelli Williams ("The Practice") but with sharper features and a somewhat frostier demeanor. Of course, the hearts of beautiful but frosty heroines in the movies are bound to melt...and with a two-sided assault (adorable kid and irresistable Italian suitor) this particular ice princess doesn't stand a chance. The old German yen for renewal in sunny Italy--a kind of Sehnsucht that dates back at least to Goethe and his contemporaries--gets played out here as well, with a light touch, of course. I hadn't heard anything of writer/director Sandra Nettelbeck before. She appears to have directed shorts and German TV films. If this is indeed her first full length feature, it's a promising start.
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Summary: Delicious Movie
Review: I loved the movie. The essential ingredient, I think, was Mario. I came right home and cooked!
Rating:
Summary: A Wonderful meal for the mind
Review: What a wonderful two hour meal for the mind, the soul and the senses. The chef is deliciously portrayed as a compulsive perfectionist, loathe to let anyone into her kitchen (figurtively and literally). The cinematography is soft and warm aside from the cool and anxious scenes in the cooler. The movie touches ones soul through the gradual awakenings of the central characters....All great but also the music... can't wait for the movie score to be released on CD. An experience to savor. Maybe 5 stars is too much but not an iota less than 4 stars.
Rating:
Summary: The German Entree in the Babette's Feast Movie Tradition
Review: On Wednesday, I went to a preview of Mostly Martha, a German entry in the Babette's Feast movie tradition, with subtitles. The subtitles are a little sparse, but the action and the cinematography are so functional, efficient and unadorned---thoroughly German in appearance--that this is not really a problem.
The protagonist is a beautiful chef, whose relationship to the world and everyone in it she controls through her cooking. Do not go hungry, or your stomach will growl through the movie. When she goes home, she prepares a perfect meal for herself, and suddenly has doubts about eating it alone. She goes downstairs in her apartment building to greet her new neighbor, an attractive bachelor, but cannot bring herself to invite him to come upstairs to join her; she volunteers to bring him something she has cooked. Through a tragedy, she is forced to begin a more direct relationship with her eight-year-old niece. The demands of the child take Martha away from the restaurant long enough to allow Martha's boss, the owner of the restaurant where Martha works, to hire a soulful Italian as sous chef.
The story is not complex, and is starkly told, except for the eruption of sensuality and feeling around the food--at least in the beginning. This movie has one of the all-time great movie scenes involving food and seduction. If you don't go see the movie for any other reason, go see it for that. The movie is very clever, beautifully done, and has a witty European-style ending.
The audience, a reasonably sophisticated one, applauded at the end, an unusual tribute.
I would give it an A-, and recommend it.
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