Order Up! - - La Cocina (2024, Mexico/USA, B/W, 139 min)

Strongly Recommended. La Cocina begins with a semi-impressionist collage of images following a girl, Estela (radiant newcomer Anna Díaz), a spirited yet cautious applicant for a kitchen job at The Grill . . . a fictitious, mid-scale restaurant off of Times Square. Quickly the story transitions to a fast-paced, noisy and excellent tableau of life amongst the, mostly Latinx and marginally legal, kitchen staff. If you have ever worked in a restaurant, you know the world that Mexican director Alonso Ruizpalacios (Gueros) assembles. This is one of those thoughtful comedies that intercalates truthful tragedy within its plot. The chief story is the romance between waitress Julia (Rooney Mara, Carol) and Pedro (Raúl Briones, Asfixia), a cook. Mara is the only Hollywood regular in the cast and she enters the company with native grace; however, the whole cast is outstanding. I particularly liked Lee Sellers (Tár) as the volatile Chef, architect of the madness