User:Loliverfrost/sandbox/Umami (film)

For one of the five basic tastes, see: Umami.

Umami, (/uːˈmɑːmi/, Japanese: うまみ) is a 2021 French comedy-drama film written and directed by Slony Sow starring Gerard Depardieu. The cast also includes (in alphabetical order) Sandrine Bonnaire, Bastien Bouillon, Antoine Dulery, Akira Emoto, Ikko, Kyoko Koizumi, Kyozo Nagatsuka, Rod Paradot, Pierre Richard, Zinedine Soualem, Sumire, Eriko Takeda, Mame Yamada, and You.

Production of the film took place in February-March 2020 in Japan, and (with production paused due to the Covid-19 pandemic) in June 2020 in France. Production in Hokkaido, Japan occurred at Otaru, downtown Sapporo, and at the Kiroro Ski Resort.The film was produced by Lucas Oliver-Frost and Slony Sow, with executive producer Alex Dong and co-producers Jean-Maurice Belayche, Evelyne Inuzuka and Yann Yoshikazu Gahier.

Logline
Following a near-death experience France's leading chef (Gerard Depardieu) throws himself into a quest seeking the flavor that has confounded his life since he was defeated by a Japanese chef's bowl of noodles as a young man.

Plot Summary
The French restaurant "Monsieur Quelqu'un" is located in the historic center of the city of Saumur, and it is here that France's leading chef Gabriel Carvin (Gerard Depardieu) celebrates the arrival of his third star. In the evening of this same day his wife Louise (Sandrine Bonnaire) leaves him for the bed of her lover Robert (Antoine Dulery), the gastronomic critic to whom Gabriel owes his stars. This separation triggers a crisis that severs his relationship with his two sons: Jean (Bastien Bouillon) the sous-chef of the restaurant who attempts without success to walk in his father's culinary footsteps, and his younger son Nino (Rod Paradot), an idealistic millennial who rejects all consumerism and seeks above all love and truth. For Gabriel this overflow of resentment strikes him in the heart, in the form of a myocardial infarction. He must now spend months of recovery away from his work. For Gabriel, a man who has lived his entire life without ever worrying about others or anything aside from his restaurant now has a chance to consider the source of his long discontentment. Pressed by his old friend Rufus (Pierre Richard), Benjamin has the crazy idea to go to Japan to see what has become of the Japanese chef who defeated him in the "World's Best Chef" competition in 1978.

Setting
The film is set in present day Saumur, France, and Hokkaido, Japan.