Review: 'Mistura' – Peru's Ice Queen Gently Brings the Drama to a Simmer

Barbara Murray plays a gently drawn socialite wife who, after leaving her husband, opens a restaurant in her home. What you expect from a film about a chic, high-end restaurant is a certain amount of heat: staff pushed to their absolute limits in pursuit of culinary perfection. But this 1960s Peruvian drama instead has a mild, calm and delicate simmer. Perhaps given the circumstances of the chef-owner

What you'd expect from a movie about a fancy high-end restaurant is a certain amount of heat: the intensity of the staff's frenzy to achieve culinary perfection is at its absolute limit. But this Peruvian drama, made in the 1960s, instead has a gentle, calm and subtle effervescence. Perhaps it's too fashionable for the chef-owner, a wealthy high-society spouse with no hospitality experience to gamble on opening a successful restaurant.

Barbara Murray is Norma, a frosty beauty who cultivates a Jackie Onassis kind of chic: big sunglasses, massive blow-dry, thick armor-like makeup. One night, Norma's husband scornfully leaves her for a beauty queen. If Norma wasn't so mean to the staff and scolding the housekeeper Rosa (Herlinda Lujan) and the driver Oscar (Cesar Balombrosio), you'd sympathize. It's Oscar (who has a bit of a crush on Norma) who suggests he open a restaurant in the house to pay off the mortgage. Norma's father was the French ambassador to Peru, and he found her passion for gastronomy. The script is a little inconsistent on this though, as Oscar also says he's never seen her long enough to turn on the stove.

The restaurant has four months to succeed before the bank takes over the house. And yet, there's no sense of Norma or the film sweating. He hires a Japanese-Peruvian cook in the kitchen. Oscar is in front of the house. But early reviews are scathing, describing the French cuisine as a bit commercial, and the restaurant half-empty. There are lessons in how teamwork makes dreams come true and embraces Peru's cultural diversity. The problem is, before that, Norma is an insufferable badass. It's a bit long to take the nose and stick to him.