What's Cooking?

Kenyan-born, London-educated Indian filmmaker Gurinder Chadha follows up on her debut hit ‘Bhaji on the Beach’ (1994) with this gentle look at multiculturalism in Los Angeles. The film details the lives of four ethnically diverse families - Afro-American, Latino, Jewish, and Asian - during one frantic Thanksgiving. The film opens with Ronald, an Afro-American who works as a spin doctor for the Republican politico; he and his wife Audrey are in the midst of preparing for their White dinner guests. Meanwhile at the Latino household, young Anthony Avila invites his womanizing father for Thanksgiving dinner, unbeknownst to his school teacher mother Elisabeth. At the same time, the Seeling family is confronted with their daughter Rachel's lesbianism, when she brings home her lover Carla. Finally, Vietnamese immigrant Trinh Nguyen struggles to understand her Americanized children after she discovers condoms in her eldest daughter's jacket and a gun in her son's room. (Jonathan Crow)