The Taste of Things (2023) Review – A Quiet Aftertaste

 

A watercolor interpretation of The Taste of Things, capturing its minimal plot and quiet themes of food, time, and shared routines.

🎥 Film Overview

Title: The Taste of Things (La Passion de Dodin Bouffant) 

Director: Trần Anh Hùng 

Release: May 24, 2023 (Cannes premiere); February 9, 2024 (USA limited); February 14, 2024 (wide) 

Runtime: 135 minutes (2 hours 15 minutes) 

Genre: Period Drama, Romance 

Screenplay: Trần Anh Hùng (based on Marcel Rouff's 1924 novel "The Passionate Epicure") 

Studio: Gaumont, France 2 Cinéma, Curiosa Films 

Music: Việt Anh Box Office: $22.4 million worldwide 

Rating: IMDb 7.4 / 96% Rotten Tomatoes (Critics), 88% (Audience) 

Awards: Best Director (Cannes 2023), France's Official Oscar Selection for Best International Feature 

Cast: Juliette Binoche (Eugénie), Benoît Magimel (Dodin Bouffant), Emmanuel Salinger (Rabaz), Patrick d'Assumçao (Grimaud), Galatéa Bellugi (Violette)

📖 Plot Summary

France, 1889. In a countryside estate, renowned gourmet Dodin Bouffant lives with Eugénie, his personal cook. For twenty years, they have worked together in quiet harmony—Eugénie in the kitchen, Dodin at the table, both devoted to the art of fine cooking.

The film opens with Eugénie preparing an elaborate meal: roasted veal loin, milk-poached turbot, baked Alaska. The camera watches patiently as she moves through the kitchen—chopping, stirring, tasting, adjusting. For nearly forty minutes, we observe cooking in real time: butter sizzling, broth bubbling, utensils scraping against crockery. There is almost no dialogue, no music. Just the sounds and rhythms of culinary craft.

As the meal unfolds, we understand that Eugénie and Dodin share more than a working relationship. They are lovers, though neither rushes to define or formalize what they have. For years, Dodin has asked Eugénie to marry him. She declines, not from lack of love, but because she sees no need for official recognition of what already exists between them.

Their days follow gentle patterns: cooking, eating, discussing food with visiting gourmets, stealing moments together at night. But when Eugénie's health begins to fail, the rhythms shift. Dodin, who has spent decades being cooked for, decides to do something he's never done before: cook for Eugénie. His gesture is not grand or desperate—it's simply his way of caring, of offering what he knows best.

The film moves slowly, deliberately. There are no dramatic conflicts, no betrayals, no manufactured crises. Instead, writer-director Trần Anh Hùng observes a relationship built through repetition, patience, and shared devotion to beauty. The taste of things here refers not just to food, but to life itself—the accumulation of small, intentional moments that create meaning over time.

🌸 Key Themes

Cooking as Love Language

In The Taste of Things, food preparation isn't about nourishment alone—it's communication, devotion, intimacy. Eugénie and Dodin rarely speak directly about their feelings, but their care for each other is expressed through every dish they create together.

When Dodin finally cooks for Eugénie, it's an act of profound tenderness. He's not trying to impress her with technique—she's the better cook, and they both know it. He's simply offering his time, his attention, his desire to give her pleasure. In a relationship where so much has been unspoken, the meal becomes a declaration.

Patience and the Passage of Time

The film's unhurried pacing reflects its philosophy: meaningful things cannot be rushed. Just as a broth needs hours to develop depth, a relationship needs time to mature. Eugénie and Dodin have been together for twenty years—not dramatic years full of highs and lows, but quiet, steady years of shared routines and accumulated understanding.

Trần Anh Hùng trusts that viewers will find beauty in slowness. He doesn't cut away from the cooking process to maintain artificial momentum. Instead, he asks us to settle into the rhythm, to appreciate the craft, to notice details we usually overlook.

The Refusal to Formalize Love

Eugénie's refusal to marry Dodin puzzles him, but the film suggests she understands something essential: their relationship doesn't need external validation. Marriage wouldn't deepen what they share—it would simply rename it.

Her position reflects a quiet confidence: she knows what they have. She doesn't need a ceremony to prove it exists. In an era when women's identities were often subsumed by marriage, Eugénie's resistance becomes a gentle assertion of selfhood within intimacy.

Beauty in the Everyday

The film celebrates ordinary labor elevated to art. Eugénie isn't a celebrity chef or a revolutionary talent—she's simply someone who takes her work seriously, who finds dignity and purpose in doing it well. The film honors this kind of devotion, suggesting that daily rituals, performed with care, are as worthy of attention as grand achievements.

🎬 What Makes This Film Special

Trần Anh Hùng's Sensory Direction

Vietnamese-French filmmaker Trần Anh Hùng (The Scent of Green Papaya) creates cinema that prioritizes sensory experience over narrative momentum. He won Best Director at Cannes 2023 for this patient, exquisitely crafted work.

Shot on 35mm at the Château du Raguin in Maine-et-Loire, the film captures textures, light, and movement with painterly attention. Hùng doesn't use cooking montages—he shows processes in full, trusting that watching skilled hands at work is inherently compelling.

Juliette Binoche and Benoît Magimel's Lived-In Chemistry

Binoche and Magimel were romantic partners in real life from 1998 to 2003 and have a daughter together. Their history brings unspoken depth to Eugénie and Dodin's relationship—they move around each other with the ease of people who've shared space for decades.

Binoche's Eugénie is serene, capable, and quietly sovereign. Magimel's Dodin is refined yet vulnerable, a man who understands beauty but struggles to express emotion directly. Their performances are remarkably restrained, communicating volumes through glances, gestures, and silences.

Pierre Gagnaire as Culinary Director

French chef Pierre Gagnaire (three Michelin stars) served as culinary director, designing authentic 19th-century dishes and coaching the actors on proper technique. The film's food sequences feel genuine because Binoche and Magimel learned to cook these dishes themselves. Every movement in the kitchen—the way Eugénie holds a knife, the rhythm of her stirring—reflects real culinary skill.

A Controversial Oscar Selection

France chose The Taste of Things as its official submission for Best International Feature at the 2024 Oscars over Justine Triet's Palme d'Or winner Anatomy of a Fall. The decision sparked debate—some saw it as political (Triet had criticized the French government), others as aesthetic preference for Hùng's classical filmmaking over Triet's contemporary thriller.

Regardless, the selection affirmed The Taste of Things as a significant work of French cinema, even if it ultimately didn't receive an Oscar nomination.

🌍 Where to Watch (2025)

Streaming: Hulu, Disney+, AMC+, HBO Max (Europe), Kanopy (library card required)

Rent/Buy: Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, Fandango At Home

Physical Media: Available on DVD and Blu-ray

Note: Availability varies by region and changes frequently. Check your local streaming services for current options. The film was released in France under the title La Passion de Dodin Bouffant and in some markets as The Pot-au-Feu before settling on The Taste of Things for English-speaking audiences.

📝 Final Thoughts

The Taste of Things is not for viewers seeking plot-driven entertainment. It's a film about watching, waiting, and noticing—about the beauty of processes performed with care, about relationships that deepen through repetition rather than drama.

Some will find it slow. Others will find it meditative. Both responses are valid. Trần Anh Hùng makes no concessions to modern pacing expectations. He asks contemporary audiences to slow down, to sit with discomfort or boredom if necessary, and to discover whether patience reveals something worthwhile.

For those willing to meet the film on its terms, The Taste of Things offers rare pleasures. It reminds us that not everything meaningful happens quickly. That devotion is often quiet. That love can be expressed through the careful preparation of a meal. That a life spent in pursuit of beauty—whether through cooking, companionship, or simply paying attention—is a life well lived.

In a culture obsessed with efficiency and speed, the film's unhurried rhythm becomes radical. It suggests that some experiences—culinary, romantic, aesthetic—require time to develop their full flavor. Like a well-aged wine or a slow-simmered stock, meaning deepens through patience.

💭 Personal Reflection

At the beginning of the film, the kitchen feels unusually busy. The rapid movements and overlapping preparations make you expect a film that will showcase many kinds of dishes, one after another. But as the film moves on, its pace gradually slows, and only then does it truly reveal the meaning of its title, The Taste of Things.

Perhaps because of that unhurried rhythm, I found myself dozing off at times. Yet it did not feel like a failure of the film. Rather, it seemed intentional. This is a film not only about the taste of food, but about the ordinary taste of life itself.

Nothing particularly dramatic happens. There are no grand conflicts or turning points. Instead, the film quietly observes the relationship between two people who take cooking seriously, and who share their lives through repetition rather than declaration. Their bond feels like well-aged doenjang—a Korean fermented paste that grows deeper and gentler over time, not louder or more intense.

By the end, I was left with a simple thought: if life could pass with this level of calm, without major misfortune, perhaps that alone would already be enough to call it happiness.

삶이 이렇게 조용히 흘러갈 수 있다면, 그것만으로도 충분히 행복이다.

(A reflection in my native Korean—because some truths about quiet contentment feel truer in the language of your heart.)

The Taste of Things reminds us that the deepest flavors develop slowly—and that a life well-seasoned is not always the loudest, but often the most gently savored.

💬 Join the Conversation

Did The Taste of Things resonate with you, or did you find its pace too slow? What films have taught you to appreciate slowness? Do you believe love is best expressed through action or words? Share your thoughts below.

🎬 More from Cinematic Sanctuaries

If The Taste of Things reminded you of beauty in slow rhythms, explore:

• Kamome Diner - Finding community and healing through food in Helsinki
• Julie & Julia – Finding purpose and joy through culinary dedication
• Little Forest - Finding Peace Through Simple Living and Seasonal Cooking
• The Chef of South Polar – Finding Warmth in the Coldest Place on Earth

Each film in our collection reminds us that healing comes in many forms—through family we choose, bonds we create, and the quiet courage to keep searching for home.

👤 About the Author

Young Lee has spent years quietly collecting and sharing films that offer comfort rather than answers—stories that value slow moments, ordinary lives, and unseen effort. As an everyday viewer, they believe cinema can remind us that slowness still has meaning in a fast-moving world.

Read more articles from this author on Cinematic Sanctuaries.