As someone whose culinary repertoire consists of grilled cheese and scrambled eggs, I really admire professional chefs and love watching documentaries about how they honed their skills and turned their passion into a career.
Watching Chef Flynn, about Flynn McGarry, who started making a name for himself at the age of 10, though, I had only one thought: I wish my kids knew how to cook like that.
Flynn is definitely an anomaly. Even his mother, Meg McGarry, a filmmaker herself, can’t believe the success he achieved at such a young age, and, because he’s still a kid and she’s still very much at home behind a camera, the movie is very much about her, too.
Although it is certainly interesting to hear her point of view about how helping him grow his business took time away from her own, the movie is not called Chef Flynn’s Mother — although maybe it should have been.
Chef Flynn spends too much time showing mother and son arguing, usually laughingly, about how much she’s filming him. This wears thin quickly.
That being said, Flynn’s story is fascinating.
A prodigy in the kitchen, he opened his home to diners when he was just 10 years old. At the age of 15, he graced the cover of the New York Times Magazine — (“I’ll never be on the cover of the Times Magazine,” says Meg) — which resulted in a Twitter controversy over his success: was he famous for his talent or his age?
It seems the answer is both.
Flynn’s love for cooking was so, well, all-consuming that his mom decided to homeschool him since school was taking too much time away from it. It’s a joy to watch him talk about his obsession with beets and nerd out on food facts.
It’s also nerve wracking to watch him prepare for opening night at his own Manhattan restaurant and to realize he’s just so young as he grapples with the responsibilities of leading a kitchen of workers who are older and have so much more experience.
To me, Chef Flynn is like an appetizer. It’s light, and a preview to something bigger and better. It left me hungry for more.
Ooo I actually like the sound of this one. I will be adding this to the movie list for sure xx