Mostly Martha (film)

Mostly Martha
Directed by	Sandra Nettelbeck
Produced by	Karl Baumgartner Christoph Friedel
Written by	Sandra Nettelbeck
Starring	Sergio Castellitto Martina Gedeck Maxime Foerste
Cinematography	Michael Bertl
Editing by	Mona Bräuer
Distributed by	Paramount Classics (USA)
Release date(s)	10 September 2001
Running time	109 mins.
Country	Italy Germany Austria Switzerland
Language	German, Italian

Bella Martha (English: Mostly Martha) is a 2001 German romantic comedy drama film directed by Sandra Nettelbeck. The American movie No Reservations is heavily based on this. It is about a skilled chef in Hamburg, Germany. When her sister dies, she is left taking care of her niece, who gives her problems. She then has to face choices about the best solution to solve the problems set forth by her niece.

The film follows the events as they occur, but has occasional interludes where Martha is speaking with her therapist about cooking.

Plot

Martha Klein (Martina Gedeck) is a workaholic chef, single-mindedly obsessed with the perfection of her culinary creations. After her boss, restaurant-owner Frida, catches her arguing with a pair of customers over the quality of her cooking, Martha is ordered to see a therapist (August Zirner) to try to work out her control issues and poor interpersonal relationships. (Martha usually faces the stress she encounters at work by locking herself in the meatlocker until she calms down.) Meanwhile, Martha's sister, perhaps her only connection to a world outside of her job, dies in a car accident, leaving Martha in charge of her niece, the sullen and broody Lina (Maxime Foerste).

While trying to deal with her sister's death and the difficulty of raising her niece (who initially wants nothing more than to find her estranged Italian father), Martha's world is further turned upside down when Frida hires funloving and unorthodox Mario (Sergio Castellitto) as a sous-chef to replace the heavily pregnant Lea. Mario challenges Martha's defenses and bonds with Lina, who begins to accompany Martha to work. Martha begins to relax and open up to the possibility of a romantic relationship with Mario. Her progress is seemingly cut short when she forgets to pick Lina up from school while helping Lea get to the hospital to deliver her baby. While she reconciles with her niece after a heated argument, Lina's father arrives to take his daughter to Italy to live with his new wife and family. Martha is distraught and conflicted and cuts off her relationship with Mario and quits her job because she is tired of Frida's criticism.

She eventually reconciles with Mario and the two of them drive to Italy to get Lina. The closing scenes of the movie suggest that they marry, adopt Lina, and are opening up a restaurant of their own. Martha, who is still seeing her therapist, is apparently giving him cooking lessons, where he is amazed that she could tell the difference between the type of sugar he used and the type of sugar the recipe called for.

Cast

• Martina Gedeck - Martha Klein
• Maxime Foerste - Lina Klein (Martha's niece)
• Sergio Castellitto - Mario^[1]
• August Zirner - Martha's Therapist
• Sibylle Canonica - Frida
• Katja Studt - Lea
• Antonio Wannek - Carlos
• İdil Üner - Bernadette
• Oliver Broumis - Jan
• Ulrich Thomsen - Samuel 'Sam' Thalberg
• Gerhard Garbers - Herr Steinberg
• Angela Schmidt - Frau Steinberg
• Diego Ribon - Giuseppe Lorezo
• W.D. Sprenger - Noisy customer

Soundtrack

The soundtrack is comprised substantially of music by artists from the ECM Records stable, including Keith Jarrett, Steve Reich, David Darling and Arvo Pärt, with most compositions dating from the 1990s. Manfred Eicher, founder of ECM Records is credited as music consultant.

Remakes

A feature film based on Mostly Martha, retitled No Reservations, was released in the United States in 2007 starring Catherine Zeta-Jones in the role corresponding to Martha. Aaron Eckhart takes on the role corresponding to Mario in Mostly Martha with an Americanised attitude.^[2]

The film inspired a Bollywood interpretation, Cheeni Kum, starring Amitabh Bachchan and a Spanish remake: Chef's Special.

Notes

1. ^ Frank Glaubrecht was hired by producers to dub over Castellitto's voice.
2. ^ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0481141/

External links

• Paramount Classics site
• Mostly Martha at the Internet Movie Database
• Mostly Martha at AllRovi