Anesu was a blessed cook, but lacked the tools to polish her skills. A gentle nudge by her son was that trigger for her to jump the ship and learn to float in the world of competitive cooking. Friends along the way helped her too. African background makes this story even more closer to real life, in my view. The end of story with mother daughter bonding was a well thought out conclusion.

I realized this was a foreign movie and that it would not be a typical Hollowood movie. Everything was fine until they decided to use deus ex machina to create drama. What a failure. The movie was fine until they force the drama making it completely ridiculous. Overall it was ok but if they would have found a different way to create the dramatic conflict the movie would have been much better. The cast was good, direction meh, script meh, plot meh.

I saw an article on The Guardian about the very first Zimbabwean film on Netflix. I like a bit of fluffy romcom from time to time, and it's Netflix that got me into them with the Christmas Prince films, so decided I'd give this one a go. This is a romcom, so complaining that it's relatively predictable misses the point. Of course it's predictable - right down to the main characters being cooks/chefs which is so common in these films! - but it's also charming. The actors who play Anesu and Prince have good chemistry, the son is sweet and the sassy best friend is a romcom standard but she's great. Of course it isn't perfect, and it's obviously been made on the smell of an oily rag. But within the limited budget it's done very well, and the fact they were able to use the actual set of the Zimbabwean cooking show they're competing on in the film was a definite bonus. Lastly there are a few subplots that aren't as fleshed out as the could be - the relationship between Anesu and her mum is strained for most of the movie and resolved without any real discussion, and the storyline with Milly Ann sort of just ends. An extra five minutes explaining these two elements would have lifted this film even more. Overall this is an enjoyable film. All the normal romcom tropes are here, but clearly done through a different lens to our Western primarily English-speaking film industries. If you like romcoms but want to see something other than the normal white faces in smalltown USA, this is worth your time.