This year’s Oscar for best foreign language film went to Another Round, and its writer, Tobias Lindholm has co-authored another superb drama in the epicurean entertainment, A TASTE OF HUNGER.
Carsten and his wife Maggi are hungry for each other and great food and even hungrier for a Michelin star that will assure the success of their restaurant and recognise their achievements. Blood, sweat and tears have mixed with the ingredients of Carsten’s ingenious recipes to make the two a power couple within the Danish gourmet scene and they will seemingly risk everything in the relentless pursuit for perfection.
Constructed like a menu, A TASTE OF HUNGER begins with a saucy entree, the couple’s sweet first meeting, a mixture of sugar and spice. Their coupling compliments and contrasts, a simmering that comes to the boil.
They marry, have two kids, then focus their energies on the pinpoint pursuit of restaurant recognition. Carsten’s perfectionism makes for a pressure cooker situation and the heat causes some collaborators to get out of the kitchen. And there is a slight cooling in the couple’s relationship that creates a lasting after taste that turns sour.
Co-written and directed by Christoffer Boe, A TASTE OF HUNGER is an examination of the corrosive corruption of relationship asphyxiating aspiration.
It stars Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Carsten and Katrine Greis-Rosenthal as Maggi. It’s a delicious double act full of sizzle, and even as the fat of betrayal spits and burns, each acknowledges the other as the essential ingredient of their lives.
A TASTE OF HUNGER is a satisfying five course meal culminating in a heated climax with a surprise twist, secret ingredient added that binds all the elements into a combustible combination, a dramatic degustation of Michelin quality and proportion.
