Michael Hofmann indulges in food fetishism with a bittersweet tale of chocolate cola sauce and unexpected passion. But while this odd-couple drama offers some insights into taste and attraction, it fails to establish the backstories required to fully appreciate the platonic relationship that chef Josef Ostendorf forges with Charlotte Roche, a café waitress with a Down Syndrome daughter and an unfulfilling marriage.
There’s an engaging hesitancy about the initial encounters, as Roche succumbs to the thick-set loner’s famously erotic cuisine. But her smug husband’s growing suspicions deflect the action towards a denouement whose bleak absurdism seem to belong to another film.