Umami

Like an air mattress, Umami is prepackaged, light and exactly what you'd expect: full of nothing, really. Umami wants to be universal but simply ends up being about a lot of very different things. The story of a crotchety chef looking for meaning in his life / child-parent relations / online bullying / cooking features too many sub-par performances and some dubious editing (characters disappear never to be heard from again, in the same space of time one group of actors spend one day while another spends two) to be considered a unified whole. [Note: In April, 2023, 11 women brought criminal charges against Gérard Depardieu for sexual assault. Writer / Director Slony Sow considered cancelling the film's release out of respect for these women, but eventually decided to honor the other cast and crew members' efforts by releasing the film but refusing to let Depardieu participate in any way in the film post-production.]