A French gourmet, Dodin Bouffant (Benoît Magimel) has developed a romantic relationship with his live-in cook of 20 years, Eugénie (Juliette Binoche). He has proposed marriage to her numerous times, and she has apparently rejected him as often. Eventually he starts cooking for her to convince her. This is the story line of the film. 

It plays in the French countryside sometime in the 19th century, based on the fact that lighting in the manor is solely by candles and the hearth is wood-fired. It is not clear what Dodin’s profession is other than chef, because we never see him working other than in his own kitchen, serving a handful of his friends in the village. He obviously has a reputation as a superb chef, since he is even invited for dinner by a prince traveling through the area.

The Taste of Things is a French film with English subtitles. I enjoyed listening to the French in an effort to practice my 40-years-rusty French. The photography is exquisite. It made me feel like I was walking around in a Renoir painting.

There was no music, no soundtrack of any type, other than the constant French dialog, which is somewhat musical on its own. The only music I remember was when the final credits rolled.

The movie is two-and-a-half hours long and nothing really happens. They cook. They cook a lot. There are extensive scenes of nothing but cooking complex French recipes, meats, baked goods and lots of sauces. The entire movie is about cooking, more cooking, more cooking, and eating, and cooking, and eating, and cooking. If you are a foodie, or a cook, you might enjoy this. I am not a foodie or a cook, and I don’t remember what I had for dinner yesterday, so all this was meaningless to me. After a while, it got really boring, and I had a hard time staying awake, not that I would have missed anything had I actually fallen asleep.

Apparently when you watch more than two full hours of nothing but cooking and eating without any other action or even music, sprinkled in with 30 minutes of slow action, you get full.

There is a set of trivia I picked up on IMDb: The two main actors who play Dodin  and his cook, Eugénie, were once married in real life (1998 – 2003).