The Kitchen

Take an actual kitchen and lose the stove, fridge, and dishwasher, and what you’re left with is the metaphorical equivalent of what The Kitchen brings to the big screen. The movie isn’t terrible, per se, but it also isn’t good, and it’s missing a few key scenes. The Kitchen is also so derivative of 2018’s Widows that one screenplay could have been born from the other, but I won’t go into that; I’m happy to pan The Kitchen on its own lack-of-merit.

Kathy (Melissa McCarthy), Ruby (Tiffany Haddish), and Claire (Elisabeth Moss) are married to a loser, a tool, and a thug, respectively. The loser is actually an OK guy, he’s just a loser; we almost care what happens to him. The boys all belong to the Irish gang that runs Hell’s Kitchen, a section of Manhattan that was kinda badass in the 1970s. Currently, it’s more like Heck’s Rec Room. Right off the bat, the hubbies go out for some robbin’ and don’t come back. No, they’re not dead, but they may as well be. The women left behind will be jail Widows for the next three years.

The trio are assured that they “will be taken care of,” but it turns out crime doesn’t pay – doesn’t pay for peripheral gangsters at least. Even though the women can’t make rent, the Irish mob balks at coughing up a penny more to help ‘em out. Times are tough – Hell’s Kitchen ain’t fryin’ up feet like it used to. In a scene speaking directly to my “WTF?” reaction, Kathy and the Meekers drop by mob HQ with fresh-baked cookies to say, “Hi” and “could ya please fatten our disability paychecks?”  The mob refuses; whod’ve guessed those gangsters were unreasonable?  

Sure, I’d be pissed off, too, if my groveling was met with dismissive derision, but there’s a big difference between “mob guy” and “married to a mob guy.” Far as I can tell, the trio just sort of decided, “Screw it. We’re in charge now.” And everybody just played along. “Oh, these women are muscling me for protection money, even though none of them owns a gun or has the ability to, how shall I put this? ‘Protect?’ Well, they’ll probably need some then, don’t they?” Personally, I’d guess you’d have to show some sort of authority or muscle to start running mob business; clearly, I know nothing about the Irish mob.

Eventually Domhnall Gleeson shows up as Claire’s personal enforcer/love-monkey. So, now all the enforcement in the Irish mob is being handled entirely by the guy who can’t foil Peter Rabbit; is that about right? I don’t want to be this guy but … isn’t your organization just a little, dare I say? “Top heavy?”

The Kitchen gets some nice performances out of actresses you may or may not like. Before she’s done, Tiffany Haddish is gonna have more 5.1 films in her career than any actor known to humankind. It doesn’t really matter how good any performance is, however, if we don’t believe it. The biggest problem is the missing scenes; The Kitchen sold me on housewives. I’m not sold on mob bosses. It’s not like the film was exactly perfect besides, either. What’s with Claire’s slice ‘n’ dice fixation? Oh, and I just LOVED the part at the 95 minute mark where we figured out we were watching a mystery. Really? A mystery? Are you kidding me?

A friend pointed out earlier this year that Glass made a reasonable first draft, but needed several more revisions. The Kitchen is there, too, but it had less to start with.

Three women, all wives in Hell’s Kitchen
Need solutions when their fates take to switchin’
When among the ain’ts
There’s none but complaints
If you can’t stand defeat, get out of the bitchin’

Rated R, 102 Minutes
Director: Andrea Berloff
Writer: Andrea Berloff
Genre: Did you see Widows last year? Whatever that was.
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Hard to say … feminists with blood lust? If those exist, them.
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Real life mobsters, I imagine