Netflixable? A Zimbabwean Single Mom struggles to win the great TV “Cook Offâ€
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Loading... - Joe Bosire
- 03 Aug 2022
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It’s the first feature film from Zimbabwe purchased and distributed by Netflix, and thus the rarest of peeks into life in the little-filmed country southern African country.. And if it meanders through a formula that’s seriously played-out in the West, at least it serves up from faces, fresh places and fresh foods as it does.
Tendaiishe Chitima plays Anesa, a single-mom and short-order cook. By day, she makes the best sadza in Budiroro, running a dollar stall diner for the demanding Mai Shupi. But as home, her tweenage son Tapiwa (Eugene Zimbudzi) both critiques her food, and times her cooking.
He’s putting her through her paces in daily imaginary run-throughs of her favorite TV show, “Battle of the Chefs.” If you’ve ever seen anything competitive involving Gordon Ramsay, or turned on The Food Network, you’ll recognize the format — lots of frazzled cooks, snooty judges, occasional tears.
They’re holding auditions for the next run of the series in Harare, but Anesu’s always-negative church-goer mom figures her daughter isn’t good for anything and Anesu herself wonders if her cooking isn’t anything special.
But her sassy BFF Charmaine (Charmaine Mujeri) gives her pep talks, and son Tapiwa and her supportive grandma secretly enter her in the auditions, which are for a contest with a $10,000 prize.
That good ol’Yankee greenback, good anywhere.
Anesu finds herself scrambling to whip up fancy, improvised dishes with salmon, eggs and local ingredients and hears herself called “amateurish” for the first time.
But no matter. She’s young and pretty and good enough and her “story” will make a compelling plotline. She wants to “show what single mothers are capable of,” open her own dollar sadza stall and maybe take her boy to see glorious Victoria Falls. Read More…
