Quick Review: The Kitchen (2013)

THE KITCHEN

BY CHRISTOPHER HASKELL
JULY 20, 2013

Set more like a stage play, “The Kitchen” focuses on a small group of friends dealing with relationships and life decisions ranging from breaking up with boyfriends to pregnancy. Laura Prepon plays a somewhat uptight art gallery owner who hates birthdays. The film focuses on her plight to get through the night of her birthday party. The gorgeous Dreama Walker plays Penny, Jennifer’s sister, who is always in the mix yet somewhat removed from the entire group of friends.

All of this would be a lot more interesting had it played out more like the classic “Can’t Hardly Wait,” a similar party film with a ranging group of friends. Instead, “The Kitchen” remains stale and stagnant, taking place almost entirely in, you guessed it, the kitchen. With half the story arcs never coming to a conclusion and the other half taking giant leaps to reach their unwarranted climaxes, the film drops the ball at being anything more than just a sub-standard independent cinema with a group of talented yet underutilized young actors.