"Toast" (Indie Comedy Day: Final Review)

Our last movie of the night departs from the American Indie scene and moves into the British Indie scene with the movie Toast. With a delightful cast and a moving memoir to base the script off of, it’s hard to go wrong with this piece. Unless, of course, you hate food… and despise a lot of crying.

Unlike the previous films today (Jeff, Who Lives at Home and Armless), this one is based off of Nigel Slater’s autobiography. For any one who wonders who that is (as I did), you can see his webpage which tells about career as a chef, food writer, and television cooking show host. However, you don’t need to know any of this (or care even), to watch this film. It only has a short blurb at the end about his adult life and really focuses on his childhood and his inspiration to become a chef.

 Don't worry, it's more than just watching this foodie come into his own: you also get to see him dealing with social protocol, sexual situations, and challenging family situations. Besides that there is also the fact that this is 1960s Britain and the nuances of the world are much different from the current times. Despite being in what seems a racially small world (which is how it undoubtly felt for him at the time), one can see a wide range of complex situations arise in a tiny bubble which helps contain the story line, but also makes it more moving since we can all understand that life is nothing if not one issue on top of another.

 I wish I could say more, but really I don’t want to spoil this piece for you. It’s all about the subtle way the ingredients work together to make a whole, just like any good recipe. You’ll want to give Toast a try, but like any Indie movie, with the laughter will come the tears, so bring a box of tissues for company. And maybe something to nosh on, since every other shot seems to have some thing delicious looking enough to make your tummy rumble.
 ________
Thanks for joining me today on movie day! If people like this enjoy, I might do it again. Heck, I'll do it again just because it helped get a lot of knitting done and good writing practice. We'll do this again soon!