Nobu Matsuhisa is one of the world’s most famous chefs. The founder of Nobu, the restaurant instrumental in bringing sushi to the mainstream in the west, he’s now the centre of a colossal empire of restaurants and hotels. He’s also obscured by them. So is this movie, focusing on him and his work and not quite locking in on either.
Director Matt Tyrnauer‘s movie is at its best when it walks us through the man’s life. Matsuhisa is such a gentle, unassuming presence that the offhand reveal that he was something of a hellraiser as a kid is a real surprise. He speaks with remarkable, frank honesty about how his training is what saved him and Tyrnauer does his best work showing how this shaped Matsuhisa’s attitude towards his work. The obsessive perfectionist chef is one of the most tiresome stereotypes, and it’s fascinating to watch Matsuhisa find a different way. Or, perhaps, just present it in a more palatable format.
There’s no hint of Ramsayian bellowing here, no shrieking profanity and tedious macho chest beating. Just a quiet, brilliant man refusing to let anything be done in a way he doesn’t approve of. That’s inspiring for certain but it’s also maddening, and oddly, more maddening because of how polite Matushisa is. There’s an intriguing tension that we glimpse in several scenes and the movie takes off every time it focuses on this just a little. Not in the prurient, exhibitionist way of celebrity chefs but more in the extra dimension it gives the man.
Those extra dimensions go to dark places and the movie is always at its best when it follows him there. Again, there’s nothing macho here at all, rather a man who was taught control and precision a a means of living his life learning how to deal with both and still be a functional human. It’s a struggle too and again, the movie is at its best when it doesn’t shy away from that, which it almost always does. The loss of Matsuhisa’s best friend to suicide, and his struggles with visiting his grave, are heartbreaking and honestly portrayed. The guarded comments from family members about how important the approval of his guests is to him hints at the darker side to his relentless focus. In one of the very few moments with the Nobu board that’s interesting, Meir Teper jokes with brittle laughter about a mistake on his part that led to Matushisa not speaking to him for two years.
That board are the problem, both in front of the camera and behind. A solid half of this movie plays like a commercial for the brand, and there are some choices made here that frankly mystify me. Hearing CEO Trevor Horwell talk about the importance of the brand is as crushingly dull as a possibly constructed interaction with Cindy Crawford and archive footage that’s crammed full of middle-aged American men who make posturing for authority. It’d be less tedious if they weren’t all parroting the party line but for the most part that’s all they do. Only a board meeting seen later in the movie has some teeth, as we see founder Robert De Niro become visibly angry that a choice was made without him. For a second, the mask slips and we see the people under the logo. It’s more real, sincere and interesting than anything else the Board vet to show us.
But even talking about this stuff to criticise it enables and encourages it and that’s the lingering aftertaste of the movie. Not the clean, beautiful flavours of the food, but the tedious, bloviated marketing copy that surrounds it.
Nobu is available digitally now.