rbbrchcknrevisited

Eden is a story of friendship and love that blooms between a lonely world-class chef and a waitress whose family life is less than ideal. The two meet as the Gregor (the chef) begins to frequent the café in which Eden (the waitress) works. After a few encounters Gregor learns that Eden's daughter Leonie is having a birthday. Gregor makes Leonie a cake and it's a small taste of this gift that lures Eden further into Gregor's life. Eden begins to visit Gregor weekly at his restaurant where their friendship blossoms. At first the relationship benefits both as Gregor's recipes influence Eden's home life and Eden's presence inspires Gregor's cooking. I don't think to call their friendship a love affair is a stretch. Charlotte Roche and Josef Ostendorf put in strong performances in the main roles. Ostendorf especially puts forth an emotional performance and as wonderful as Roche is, it is Ostendorf who carries the movie. I didn't know much about the film going in but I am glad to have spent the time to watch it.

As I try to do with all movies taken from a book, I went into this with low expectations. Unfortunately for me, this movie even fell short of those. Personally I have NEVER seen a movie stray so far from the book. I cannot for the life of me believe Peter Buchman read Eragon. Unlike the book, the movie's plot is weak, the characters are underdeveloped and moviegoers have no chance to make emotional connections. For the most part the acting was poor (even though some decent actors were cast), the character relationships were poorly defined and often incorrectly defined and there was too little attention to detail (which I believe was done in a cheap attempt to shorten the movie). The special effects were well done but details were wrong as we Buchman's generalities. I was highly disappointed and will not waste my time seeing the sequel.