Movie Musings: TOAST

TOAST is a movie completely lacking a cohesive identity. At first I thought it was a sweet, if somewhat by the numbers, story about a boy and his stepmother competing for the affection of his father by constantly one-upping each other in the creation of culinary delights.

It should be noted that during this clash of wills the boy frequently comes off as petulant and whiny and pretty soon you start rooting for the stepmother a) because she’s played by Helena Bonham Carter and b) because she’s vilified for no other reason than ‘she’s not my real mum’.

But somewhere around the film’s third act there’s a jump forward in time and suddenly it’s a story about a young man’s sexual awakening…and also it’s a biography?

Sure. Whatever you say.

Look, if you cut out the last 10-15 minutes you can just pretend that TOAST was a somewhat interesting movie that you just never got around to seeing the end of. But if you include the film’s last gasp of self-indulgent revisionism then the whole thing is a hot mess that never really manages to figure out the point its trying to make.