| Americans are accustomed to equate Mexican food with enchiladas, tamales, tortillas, refried beans, and Spanish rice with hot sauce. But that is actually Tex-Mex food. In the film Tortilla Soup, directed by María Ripoll, the real Mexican cuisine is beautifully presented at meal after meal. We even see how the food, including tortilla soup, is prepared by master chef Martín Naranjo (played by Hector Elizondo) of the mythical Nuevo Latino Restaurant in East Los Angeles. The story centers on Martín, who is the single parent of three daughters. His wife died some years earlier, whereupon he lost his tastebuds and evidently started to dominate his family, saying “While you’re in my house, you follow my rules.” Because he can no longer taste the food at his restaurant, he relies on his business partner, Gomez (played by Julio Oscar Mechoso), who later dies. Unobtrusively, he is courting Yolanda (played by Constance Marie), but her mother Hortensia (played by Raquel Welch) also has amorous designs on Martín. At almost every meal, someone makes an announcement. Carmen (played by Jacqueline Obradors) begins by announcing that she has plunked down money for a condo in the Playa Del Rey marina area of West Los Angeles, though at a later meal she announces that she has been offered a job in Barcelona and will rent the condo. One evening high school senior Maribel (played by Tamara Mello), the youngest daughter, announces that she is moving in with a Brazilian boyfriend, Andy (played by Nikolai Kinski), though he never asked her, so that she can discover her own identity, an obvious prescription for later conflict. Eventually, chemistry schoolteacher Leticia (played by Elizabeth Peña), the oldest, announces that she is marrying a coach at her school (played by Paul Rodriguez). With everyone moving away, Martín announces at another meal that he has sold the house so that he can live in a smaller one, and he then stuns Hortensia by announcing that the bride in his new house will be Yolanda. Presumably the story could end at this point, but instead there are several epilogs. Maribel and Andy make up. Leticia becomes pregnant. One day Martín takes Carmen to the airport so that she can board the flight to Barcelona, but Martín is clearly unhappy to lose her. In a few hours Carmen shows up for dinner, having abandoned her opportunity in Barcelona, to become the manager of the Nuevo Latino Restaurant so that her father can enjoy his new bride as well as a well-deserved retirement. A feel-good movie that shows the resilience of Mexican families despite many tensions, the subtext is a sharp contrast with dysfunctional Caucasian families portrayed in such films as The Ice Storm (1997), whose director Ang Lee adapted part of the screenplay for Tortilla Soup from his Eat Drink Man Woman (1994), which is set in Taipei (with the title Yin Shi Nan Nu). Those deciding to see Tortilla Soup should not do so on an empty stomach, however, without first making reservations at an authentic Mexican restaurant. For a post-cinema meal, Los Angeles patrons are especially fortunate in having Border Grill, whose chefs created the actual food displayed in the film, though they will wish that they could visit the well-stocked kitchen and beautiful dining room in the Encino home provided by the parents of La Brea Bakery’s proprietor for the fil |