The Heat: A Kitchen (R)evolution (2018)

(On TV, May 2020) Like a progressive demonstration, documentary film The Heat: A Kitchen (R)evolution carries a lot of different placards, fancy slogans, contradictory messages, a chip on its shoulder and overflowing causes. If the result bubbles all over the place, it does have some energy. Everyone has something they’d like to fix in the world of food services, and The Heat is initially overwhelmed by trying to accommodate all of those socially progressive issues. Fortunately, it does settle into a more comfortable rhythm once the main thesis of the film becomes clearer: The problem in the kitchen is the glorified macho-chef attitude that translates with verbal abuse, hazing and misogyny. The documentary focuses on eight female chefs, making much out of the divide between home cooking (dominated by women) and professional cuisine (dominated by men) and how they’re all trying to bring more equality but also more respect back in restaurant kitchens. It’s not always perfect— Writer-director-producer Maya Gallus veers close to misandry at times (with the self-satisfied underdog smirk knowing that this kind of discrimination is socially acceptable) and its focus on seeing most things through one lens can wear thin at times. Furthermore, the film cooks itself in a corner when it tries to tell audiences that the kitchen world isn’t as macho as it purports to it, while giving us plenty of anecdotes that it is, in fact, as rowdy as portrayed. Ah well—if nothing else, The Heat is an (other) interesting dive into the kitchen behind respectable restaurants, pointing out how an imperfect culture can be changed for the better. It goes well with the flood of other food-related documentaries out there, and it gives voice to other people than the usual celebrity interviewees.