"Cuisine et dépendances" used to be a play in the early '90s, and was turned into a movie a few years later. In fact, it's the first movie the excellent duo Bacri/Jaoui (" On connait la chanson", "Un air de famille",... and the upcomming "Le gout des autres" ) collaborated to. It's a dinner of 'retrouvailles' between used-to-be-friends, who haven't seen each other for 10 years.

There is the couple welcoming the dinner (Sam Kermann + Zabou )with a friend (Jean-Pierre Bacri ), who has begged - 2 months ago - for a 2 weeks hospitality. As usual, his character is depressive, bad-tempered, jealous and in bad mood. The wife's brother (Jean-Pierre Daroussin), who spends his time losing money in poker, came with 'his new girlfriend Marilyn he met 4 days ago in a disco' to borrow money from her sister. There finally are the real guests: a journalist (Agnes Jaoui) and her husband, a very popular TV star.

The real success of this movie is that we don't see the dinner itself, but people succeeding in the kitchen during all the evening, chatting, revealing us how the dinner is happening, but getting more and more excited. In fact, the movie is so well done that no actors are playing the Marilyn and the TV star characters, without any confusion in the coherence of the story (they're not supposed to be in the kitchen). As in "Un air de famille", the soiree degenerates into a battlefield with people quarelling all around, evacuating their old rancors.

The confrontation between people who have been very close, and then separated for 10 years, having evoluted in differently is well described - and so fun! I don't understand why the average note is around 5 (I gave a strong 8), because it's a real good movie you can enjoy a lot of times ( story, excellent acting, fun score... ). Unfortunately, it's a french movie, meaning that you have to understand well french to really take advantage of the dialogues. Anyway, if you liked that one, look for "Un air de famille", "Kennedy et moi"... in fact every movie of Bacri/Jaoui.