If
only they had more fusion cuisine at Taba, maybe then there would be peace in
the Middle East. Or perhaps not. A thirteen-year-old aspiring chef in Brooklyn
tries to bring his mixed Israeli-Palestinian family together with food, but
their divisions might be too deep for his culinary efforts to heal, despite
some help from Brazil in Fernando Grostein Andrade’s Abe, which screens during the 2019 Sundance Film Festival.
Abe
prefers “Abe,” but his family calls him Abraham, Avraham, Avi, or Ibrahim,
depending on which side is doing the talking. His mother and her parents are
Jewish Israeli, his paternal grandparents are Palestinian Muslims, and his father
is a “plague on both your houses” atheist. As you might guess, family gatherings
are super awkward. Frankly, they bicker so much, they never enjoy Abe’s cooking.
For
a thirteen-year-old, Abe is pretty good at the basics (or so he thinks), but he
needs a bit of coaching when it comes to more ambitious creations. Chico Catuaba
is the chef he has in mind to mentor him. The Bahia native once had his own restaurant,
but now sells his unique brand of Brazilian-Jamaican fusion cuisine in his
pop-up kitchens throughout Brooklyn. Initially, Catuaba is suspicious of Abe
and the potential child labor legal problems he might bring, but the young teen’s
sincerity wins him over. However, he will make sure Abe pays his dues first,
before giving him real kitchen responsibilities.
Andrade’s
film boasts a lithe and lively Brazilian soundtrack, featuring co-star Seu
Jorge on two tracks (“Imigrantes” and Veloso’s “Meia Lua Inteira”), Tulipa Ruiz
on “Sal E Amor,” and musical supervisor Jaques Morelenbaum’s solo cello
arrangements of Jobim’s “Brigas Numcas Mais” and “Samba de Uma Noto So.” It
sounds fantastic and the food looks delicious, so it is easy to forgive the
formulaic aspects of Lameece Issaq & Jacob Kader’s screenplay. In fact, Andrade
executes the culinary coming-of-age tale with a light touch, dialing down the obvious
clichés and potentially fraught politics as much as possible. Instead, he
focuses on the diverse, likable ensemble of characters.
Noah
Schnapp from Stranger Things is appealingly
energetic and earnest as Abe. However, the perfectly cast Seu Jorge frequently
steals the show as Catuaba. Anyone who has seen him perform knows he has
serious charisma and a voice that could take work away from James Earl Jones,
but he also wields a kitchen knife with authority. As Abe’s parents, Dagmara
Dominczyk and Arian Moayed also convincingly look and sound like a loving
couple, whose relationship is under strain and stress. As a bonus, the great
character actor Mark Margolis adds some crusty flair as Abe’s Jewish
grandfather, Benjamin.
Abe is a very nice
little movie with a terrific soundtrack. The notion of refracting the Middle
Eastern conflict through the microcosm of a Brooklyn family might sound like a
ham-fisted, finger-wagging cinematic lecture, but Andrade mostly makes it work,
by not forcing it too hard. Recommended for fans of foodie movies and Seu
Jorge, Abe screens again today (2/2)
in Park City, as part of this year’s Sundance Film Festival.
