La Cocina

Name: La Cocina
Genre: Drama
Released: October 25, 2024
Duration: 139 min
Rating: 75
Cast: Anna Díaz, Diana Elynel, Kerry Adra, Leo James Davis, Mai Elissalt

2024

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Generally favorable reviews based on 14 Critic Reviews

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Movie Details & Credits

Arthouse Traffic | Release Date: October 25, 2024 | Not Rated

Starring: Anna Díaz, Diana Elynel, Kerry Adra, Leo James Davis, Mai Elissalt, María Fernanda Bosque, Motell Gyn Foster, Oded Fehr, Raúl Briones, Shavanna Calder

Summary: It is the lunchtime rush at The Grill, a New York tourist trap that serves thousands of customers on a regular Friday like today. Money has gone missing from the till and all the workers are being questioned. Most of them are illegal immigrants and they struggle to defend their job, their only rightful place in the world, as they prepare anIt is the lunchtime rush at The Grill, a New York tourist trap that serves thousands of customers on a regular Friday like today. Money has gone missing from the till and all the workers are being questioned. Most of them are illegal immigrants and they struggle to defend their job, their only rightful place in the world, as they prepare an endless array of dishes, trying to keep up with the constant stream of orders coming in from the dining room.… Expand

Director: Alonso Ruiz Palacios

Genre(s): Drama

Rating: Not Rated

Runtime: 139 min

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Critic Reviews

Liam Lacey

Dec 4, 2024

Ruizpalacio’s purpose is to present the harried workplace as a microcosm of American capitalism, its obsession with abused undocumented immigrants, anger at women’s reproduction rights and devotion to the churning machinery of consumption. The message isn’t new but, in the present moment, the sheer bluntness of the critique feels liberating. Read full review

The Playlist Rafaela Sales Ross

Feb 18, 2024

Briones and Mara are perfect dance partners in this waltz between reality and possibility, stark opposites and doomed lovers united by a hope they know to be foolish. Read full review

RogerEbert.com Brian Tallerico

Oct 25, 2024

La Cocina is a phenomenal showcase for Briones, who gives one of the most mesmerizingly multi-faceted performances of the year. Read full review

David Rooney

Feb 19, 2024

Even if the film ultimately strays too far into virtuosic theatricality, betraying its origins, La Cocina is a gripping reflection on the dehumanizing grind of labor and the ways that its soul-crushing routines stifle hope. Even if he takes too long wrapping up an overwrought climactic crescendo, this is a compelling vision of the immigrant experience as a hellish limbo in which even the seeming ballast of community, brotherhood and love can be illusory. Read full review

IndieWire David Ehrlich

Feb 18, 2024

While La Cocina can’t always shake the polemical stiffness of its source material or the political chokehold of its modernized setting, the film’s agit-prop expressionism allows it to push beyond the boundaries of other stories like it. Read full review

The Film Stage Rory O'Connor

Feb 18, 2024

Ruizpalacios’ film has style to burn but little interest in subtlety, and even the most high-grade hammers can lose their sheen after 139 minutes of hammering. Read full review

Lee Marshall

Feb 19, 2024

We never shake off the feeling we’re watching a filmed play, one whose dramatic crescendos and lulls are relentlessly stagey and stylised. Read full review

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