OxfordPress.com

Grade: B

Verdict: Mostly yummy.

Details: Starring Martina Gedeck and Sergio Castellitto. Directed by Sandra Nettelbeck. Rated PG for language and adult themes. One hour, 37 minutes. Limited release

See it: Local theaters and showtimes for [an error occurred while processing this directive]Mostly Martha

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Review: No, it's not that Martha, though this Martha, too, is a dictatorial whiz in the kitchen. She's also precise, controlling and unable to accept any meal that's not first-rate. However, she hasn't done anything enterprising with her stocks, unless they're chicken stocks.

"Mostly Martha" is a charming German import about a four-star chef named Martha (Martina Gedeck) who has a one-star personal life. She works at a trendy restaurant in Hamburg, where she rhapsodizes over the perfect foie gras and reads the riot act to a customer who doesn't think her steak is rare enough.

For Martha, food matters. It's how she connects with people. She greets a new neighbor with an invitation to bring him dinner. She spends her therapy sessions sharing recipes with her shrink. What she needs to do is prepare an aphrodisiac — say, a dozen well-garnished oysters. But the restaurant is all she wants, all she needs. She thinks.

Then two things occur. Her sister is killed in an auto accident and Martha takes in her withdrawn, unhappy 8-year-old daughter, Lina (Maxime Foerste), until the girl's father, now living in Italy, is located.

Next, it gets more dicey than spicy at the restaurant. The owner has hired a second chef, a buoyant Italian named Mario (Sergio Castellitto, soon to be seen in "The Last Kiss," which opens next week). Though he effusively compliments Martha on her dishes, she's still not pleased to be sharing her kitchen. Plus, their styles are totally opposite. She cooks with a slightly grim concentration; he likes to improvise to music. She's compulsively ordered; he's impetuously instinctive.

Naturally, they're made for each other.

"Mostly Martha" is another in a delectable long line of food movies, stretching from "Babette's Feast" to "Soul Food" to "Eat, Drink, Man, Woman." OK, so German food isn't as innately mouthwatering as fried chicken or coq au vin. Even so, the meals coming out of Martha's kitchen look pretty wonderful.

There are few surprises in "Mostly Martha," but this is the sort of reheated formula that's as endearing as it is durable. Gedeck shows us the woman behind the obsessive workaholic, and Castellitto knows the difference between exuberance and cartoonishness. Flavorful and romantic, you could call this "How Martha Got Her Groove Back" — assuming, that is, she ever had one to begin with.

— Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, (none)