This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Catherine Zeta-Jones plays a gourmet New York chef who's in mandatory therapy because her boss, restaurant owner Patricia Clarkson, thinks she's too structured and uptight. She's single and set in her ways, but when her sister dies and leaves her young daughter, Abigail Breslin, in her charge, her entire life turns upside down. Add in a radical new chef, Aaron Eckhart, in her kitchen, and she almost becomes completely unglued!Catherine Zeta-Jones gives a surprisingly good performance in this comedy-dramedy. Usually, audiences are too stunned by her appearance to even bother noticing whether or not she can act, but in this one, they try very hard to downplay her looks so her acting can shine. She's still beautiful, but it's easy to see her frustration, loneliness, and tenderness. She's in a role that could easily be hammed up by a lazy actress so that the audience quickly gets that she feels out of her element, but Catherine plays it in a realistic way.Abigail Breslin gives one of her best performances in No Reservations. She can cry at the drop of a hat, and when the script calls for her to be angry, hopeful, or cute, she easily complies. And, while I'm not a very big fan of the rest of the cast, Aaron Eckhart, Patricia Clarkson, and Lily Rabe, they're perfectly adequate in the roles they're given. Aaron is supposed to be at ease and full of himself, Patricia is supposed to be competent and in control, and Lily is supposed to be low-class and annoying.If, by any chance, you've seen the original German film, Mostly Martha, you should be forewarned that No Reservations takes a very different tone. The romance is barely a plot point in the original, and it's much more of a drama. The American remake is lighter and more romantic.Either director Scott Hicks or cinematographer Stuart Dryburgh chose a very interesting filming style. In every scene that is supposed to show Catherine's structure, the shots are framed through windows or with bars and lines in the background. While you might not notice the consistency at first, it's quite clever and adds to the feeling of relaxation when she finally lets her hair down. My one complaint in the film-besides my lack of enthusiasm for the romance-is the food shown in Catherine's kitchen. She's a perfectionist and a gourmet, but she's rarely shown preparing or discussing ornate dishes. In one scene, she's given the task of putting a sugar spun garnish on a dessert, something that would never be done by the head chef-and would be taken care of during the preparation hours before the restaurant's open, not during the dinner rush. Besides that, the script is pretty cute, and it's a great date movie to watch with someone you hope will become your sweetie pie.

After six years, I finally got to see this and while part of me expected a romantic comedy, the fact this was mostly a drama with some light moments was fine with me as I really enjoyed seeing Ms. Catherine Zeta-Jones playing a chef who's used to doing things her way before having to deal with her niece Abigail Breslin after her mother dies and then also then dealing with another chef at her restaurant played by Aaron Eckhart. This was both a touching and cheerful movie that had me mostly smiling during the most heart tugging scenes. Really, the atmosphere was just good enough for whatever the sequences called for. So on that note, I highly recommend No Reservations.

I had some reservations about allowing my girlfriend to pick tonight's movie; it was only fair, since she has been willing to sit through a lot of my movies lately. She's a serious Romantic, and nine out of ten times her choices are Chick Flicks of this type, not all of which have been difficult to endure. But this one was more of the same ol' same ol' ... I've learned it is a remake of a German film called "Bella Martha", but to me it was more like a remake of virtually any other romance story of recent decades.Catherine Zeta-Jones plays a talented chef who's so good at the foods she prepares that her boss won't fire her, even though she is a major pain to work with and constantly barges out of the kitchen to confront paying customers when they feel their meal isn't prepared the way they like it. Instead, her employer makes her go to a therapist. Then she suffers a blow when her sister dies and she has to take in her little niece, having had no experience in child raising. One day she encounters a feisty and endearingly off color new male cook at work, who is written straight out of every other 'outrageous boy meets apprehensive girl' narrative you've seen -- she is appalled by him at the start, but the kid loves him and as time goes on, well ... you know... I mean, really. Talk about typical, cliché'd and predictable. It wasn't a "bad" film, just overly familiar and routine. Jones is pretty good in her part but there isn't much more to recommend other than that. ** out of ****

I watched this movie when I first started getting interested in cooking, I happen to like it. I know it's a remake and Mostly Martha was really good but this movie had it's moments; it had it's cute moments, mostly all of them center around Nick, the scenes of the three together making the pizza I thought happen to be a cute scene. It also had it's sad and dramatic scenes (I won't say anything more) which I think are handled pretty well in my opinion. I think it's a sweet movie that made me smile and laugh, it's a cute movie and I think actors did a good job, Catherine Zeta Jones and Aaron Eckhart are both great actors in my opinion.