Soap Kitchen: Ruizpalacios Underwhelms & Over Bakes Food Drama

Making his English language debut with fourth feature La Cocina, based on the notable stage play by Arnold Wesker, Alonso Ruizpalacios presents an absurd, impulsive microcosm of oft invisible experiences. Taking place behind-the-scenes in what appears to be a mediocre tourist mainstay in Times Square (set in an era before cellphones), a teeming community of workers tossed together like a makeshift family goes about the daily grind. As circumstances dictate, the focus is one particularly grueling lunch shift in which various coinciding dilemmas come to a show stopping head.

Much like his exceptional 2018 title Museo, Ruizpalacios gravitates towards the power of process, drifting into tangentiality of the narrative to collect the milk of human experiences.…...