John Wells
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Filmography
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Connections, in both directions
No, its not the great Depression and this is not The Grapes of Wrath.
Glengarry Glen Ross (1992)
Directed by James Foley
influenced The Company Men (2010)
Characters Themes
Playing another of the casualties, Chris Cooper evokes Jack Lemmon in Glengarry Glen Ross; old and forgotten, reduced to dying his hair and begging for work.
And the Pollyanna-ish ending is hardly the stuff of Arthur Miller or, for that matter, David Mamet, whose “Glengarry Glen Ross” nailed the desperation of middle-aged men scrambling for a morsel of the American Dream.
Men is neither as gritty nor as unsentimental as David Mamet’s more uncompromising assessment of office politics, Glengarry Glen Ross.
After arriving in London, Adam gathers his staff, à la the “Seven Samurai” (his words), from short-order shops and rival kitchens across London, a crew that includes Michel ( Omar Sy ), an old colleague from Paris, and Helene ( Sienna Miller ), an exquisitely talented and spirited sous chef who despises Adam and everything he stands for.
Knight’s script, too, supplies sharp, glancing insights into this ultra-competitive environment and the killer instinct it takes to succeed, even turning the Michelin quest into a sort of heist caper that continually places Adam and his team (which he models on the warriors from “Seven Samurai”) on high alert.
He recruits a "Seven Samurai" (his term) of kitchen help that includes an attractive working-class divorced mother, Helene (Sienna Miller), who inevitably perceives the wounded heart beneath Adam's leather jacket and muscle bruises (souvenirs from angry drug dealers, still seeking back payment).
Like Jon Favreau’s similarly themed Chef (this film’s original title), Burnt is filled with glossy images of gorgeously prepared food, but its characters and story are significantly less flavorful.
For the MasterChef crowd, there's plenty of food porn – with dishes designed by Marcus Waring (who served as a consultant) – but, still, you may find it isn't as juicy a treat as Jon Favreau's recent Chef , or underrated Stanley Tucci starrer Big Night .
But “Burnt” feels more authentic than either that film or Jon Favreau’s meringue-light “Chef.”
The movie hardly needs psychological intervention, because Burnt (which was going to be called Chef until Jon Favreau’s food-truck movie came along) is itself a kind of culinary therapy.
Even so, you long for the food-friendly approach that Jon Favreau brought to Chef .
While the American job market isn’t exactly booming, “The Internship” still arrives late to the issue—3 1/2 years after George Clooney in “Up in the Air” and 2 1/2 years after the Ben Affleck-starring “The Company Men.”
When Winston (Ian McShane), the head of secret assassin society The Continental, orders a former member to honor the gold marker Italian gangster Santino D’Antonio (Riccardo Scamarcio, "Burnt") has presented for repayment of past favors, retirement into civilian life must be put on hold for "John Wick: Chapter Two."
Writer-director J.C. Chandor depicts well-tailored rats scurrying for cover, an improvement over The Company Men, which tried making us feel sorry for fallen money-grabbers like Ben Affleck's character because he lost his country club membership.
Jason Reitmans Up in the Air handled the subject of corporate downsizing with a biting satiric edge, and more recently, John Wells The Company Men focused more directly on the human consequences of the financial meltdown.
But though we’re still down and out, at least we’re filthy rich in films: from features such as John Wells’ The Company Men, Oliver Stone’s Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps and Jason Reitman’s Up in the Air to documentaries such as Charles Ferguson’s Inside Job, Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story and Alex Gibney’s Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room.
Diverse characters meet in a closed space and it’s their conversations that propel the action – at first glance, August … can draw associations with Carnage, Roman Polanski’s adaptation of Yasmina Reza’s play.