Rent Babette's Feast (1987)

Cult - Babette's Feast review by JD

If you've enjoyed Transformers 1, 2, 3, and 4 and look forward to 5, 6, 7, and 8 this is not for you. If you prefer the way-off mainstream, cult film you have hit solid gold. This is a slow moving bleak story about repressed emotion, Lutherian purity, poverty, and thwarted passion in a rural remote Danish coastal village set during the French revolution. I enjoyed some of the scenes in a sober and settled sort of way. Most of it however is about love which will never be realised or allowed, be it love of cooking, or of a woman. This should have a 40 certificate, few under 40 will enjoy it, some over 50 will really like it.

Delightful - Babette's Feast review by Ianto

This is a delightful and well observed film but as a previous reviewer has said it is aimed at a more mature audience and wont appeal if your usual fare is Hollywood block-busters.

Waiting for the Feast to Catch Fire - Babette's Feast review by griggs

I can see the beauty in this film, and I get why people call it a classic, but I really struggled to connect with it. For most of the runtime I was clock-watching, waiting for it to do something a bit less polite and a bit more alive.

The film takes its time getting to the feast — and because the feast is the plot's main event, you do feel the build-up stretching. I can't fault the performances, and the filmmaking is quietly immaculate, but the story telling felt a bit too contrived and too soft-focus for my taste.

Then the final stretch arrives and, suddenly, everything clicks. The meal isn't just dinner, it's the payoff: funny, sensual, and genuinely moving, and it finally gives the film some spark. I just wish it didn't take quite so long to reach the point where both the story and my enjoyment properly sit down at the table.