Such great promise that founders on the central character’s relentless awfulness.

Shot in black-and-white (mostly), the lack of colour and subterranean nature of a New York restaurant kitchen creates an other worldliness that is adrift from any particular decade. Except for the smoking. That shows that it must be last century. The Grill feels like a successful franchise that pretends to be fine dining but the kitchen is a production line. 

We find our way via the back door with a hopeful Estela (Anna Díaz), fresh from Mexico, undocumented and looking for our man child protagonist Pedro (Raúl Briones) who has recommended her for the job. She gets a chef job in the kitchen almost by default and then we watch the mayhem unfold.

Sitting uncomfortably between the transcendental black-and-white exploration of class systems of Roma (2018) and the slapstick camp excess of a Noé (Climax (2018)), the result is occasionally absorbing and too frequently irritating. The half-baked narrative is waitress Julia (an underutilised Rooney Mara) and her decision to terminate her pregnancy with Pedro’s child. Cue Pedro‘s tantrums, bullying and rampant narcissism – picking fights, and generally being a tool. Picking fights or verbally goading the other workers seems to be all he does and, although this might be a commentary on the cultural melting pot of New York or the frustration of the immigrant, his character is one note with no discernible development.

Around the edges of Pedro’s shenanigans we see the hierarchies of culture and gender. Most of the chefs are men and undocumented, kept there with promises of legitimacy. They are above the servers though, who are all women. It’s an interesting premise but it goes nowhere. The camera work is often fluid and balletic and the black-and-white renders some scenes in exquisite light and shade. I kept expecting more.

The point? I’m not sure there is one and the words that kept surfacing as I watched were ‘pretentious’ and ‘shallow’. Some sort of narrative arc or character development might have saved it.