Review of Pressure Cooker (2008) by Dave S — 15 Aug 2010

Does a good job of telling these people's stories without resorting to an excess of direct interviews, reality TV style. Surprisingly affecting, but left me with lots of questions. The human interest side is there, but the movie never really explains how/why this high school has a cooking program in the first place, how the competition actually works, and also leaves the teacher as kind of a cipher.

The movie is content to construct her as the outwardly cranky teacher who is really devoted to certain students, but I wanted to know more about who she was and where she was coming from, particularly when she casually and caustically drops comments about race and class in the context of cooking - how the students need to refine their palates to be less "ghetto", etc.