Film / What's Cooking?

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What's Cooking? is a 2000 American comedy-drama film directed by Gurinder Chadha, starring Joan Chen, Julianna Margulies, Mercedes Ruehl, Kyra Sedgwick, and Alfre Woodard.

Set against the backdrop of the Fairfax District of Los Angeles, four families of different ethnic cultures (one Jewish, one Vietnamese, one Latino and one African-American) celebrate Thanksgiving complete with family secrets and dysfunction while trying to find peace and harmony.

This movie contains the following tropes:

• All for Nothing: Rachel's elderly relatives don't actually seem to give a shit about her being gay (or that her sperm donor is her gay brother-in-law) beyond being surprised. They seem more confused about how the sperm donation process works and if Jerry still counts as the dad, meaning Rachel's parents put that pressure on Rachel and Carla for nothing.
• Bait-and-Switch: Rachel prepares to tell her family something that's been on her mind a lot, and her parents assume she's telling their relatives she's gay and Carla's her girlfriend. She instead tells everyone she's pregnant, which causes her father to blurt out her lesbianism wondering how she could possibly be pregnant. Turns out she got a sperm donation from her gay brother-in-law.
• Bratty Teenage Daughter: Monica doesn't get along with her mother or her stepmother apparently, as Paula tells Audrey the two were at each other's throats.
• Calling the Old Man Out: When Jenny's mother demands to know why she didn't tell anyone but her boyfriend about the gun she found in Gary's room, Jenny cries it's because they never talk about their problems like other families do.
• Calling the Young Man Out: Ronald gets dragged by his mother after she finds out about his affair, and tells him to think about why Audrey's stuck around this long despite how much she's been hurt.
• Coming-Out Story: Rachel tells her parents that she's a lesbian and brings her girlfriend Carla over to Thanksgiving and wants to move in with her.
• Connected All Along: The ending reveals that all four of the main families live in the same neighborhood, which you wouldn't guess until Jenny and Gary's little brother accidentally shoots the gun from Gary's room, alerting everyone else when they hear the shot.
• Dark Secret: There are plenty of them: Rachel is gay and she's also pregnant; Elizbeth and her husband Javier are separated after Javier had slept with her cousin and she's dating a white co-worker and her daughter Sofia is dating a non-Latino.
• Dysfunctional Family/Family Disunion: All four of them. Five counting the Moores.
  • Seelig, the Jewish family, are dealing with the fact that their daughter's coming-out as a lesbian and their relatives dropping in without an invite.
  • Nguyen, the Vietnamese family, had found out about their son's expulsion and their daughter having extramarital sex. Also, Culture Clash is at play with the family divided over the meal being Vietnamese along with their failed attempt at cooking the Turkey in such cuisine.
  • Avila, the Latino family, had a tense family reunion with Elizabeth's ex-husband who came over with a grudge along with Sofia's new non-Latino boyfriend being invited to the party.
  • Williams, the African-American family, focuses on Audrey's not only having to cook but also having to please her husband and mother-in-law who are seeing her cooking skills. Her son, Michael, also had low opinions on her.
    • Moores, a white family who're invited to spend Thanksgiving with the Williams, are dealing with Blended Family Drama due to Paula being the second wife and her stepdaughter Monica resenting her.
• Innocently Insensitive: Sofia's father and male relatives mistake her boyfriend as Chinese instead of Vietnamese and make Jackie Chan jokes around him.
• No Antagonist: While certain characters act antagonistic, the movie doesn't have any outright villains.
• Obnoxious In-Laws: Audrey's mother-in-law acts like this during her time in the Williams house, like complaining about the turkey being pink and insisting on making macaroni and cheese. She immediately changes her tune when she learns her son was having an affair, believing Audrey one hundred percent and calling her son out for such a dick move.
• Parents as People: All over the place. Every parent in this movie is a flawed person. The most flawed would have to be Javier, who cheated on Elizabeth with her cousin, and Jenny's parents, who are completely out of touch with her and her brothers and assume the worst of her.
• Poor Communication Kills: The problem shared by all the families is the fact that they fail to properly communicate with each other.
  • The Seeligs are stressed because their daughter's a lesbian and they don't want to upset their older relatives.
  • The Nguyens are stressed because of the generational gap between the parents and children.
  • The Avilas are stressed because Elizabeth's son invited her ex-husband without telling her until after the fact, and then her boyfriend shows up for dessert.
  • The Williams are stressed because they're just not talking at all about their problems until they explode during dinner.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here!: Javier storms out of the house after Elizabeth makes it clear she's done with him when he starts an argument about her new boyfriend.
• Thanksgiving Day Story: It's about five different families struggling to make it through Thanksgiving dinner despite their personal issues and buried traumas.
• The Unapologetic: Elizabeth calls Javier out on the fact he not only slept with her cousin, but at no point ever actually apologized to her for what he did or made any attempt to own up for it. She makes it clear that by now she's not interested in them ever getting back together and he leaves in a huff.
• Understanding Boyfriend: Jenny turns to her boyfriend after she finds a gun in her brother Gary's room, as she didn't believe she could tell her family. Unfortunately, her parents find Jenny hugging him in their video store and immediately assume the worst (due to finding a condom in her jacket the other day) which causes a big fight between them.