Toast (2010)

• Year: 2010
• Released: 30 Dec 2010
• Country: United Kingdom
• Adwords: 2 nominations
• IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1658851/
• Rotten Tomatoes: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/toast
• Metacritics:
• Available in: 720p, 1080p,
• Language: English
• MPA Rating: Not Rated
• Genre: Biography, Comedy, Drama
• Runtime: 96 min
• Writer: Lee Hall, Nigel Slater
• Director: S.J. Clarkson
• Cast: Oscar Kennedy, Victoria Hamilton, Colin Prockter
• Keywords: adolescence, cooking, nostalgia, autobiography, based on memoir or autobiography, cookies,

	6.6/10
	57/100

Toast Storyline

Wolverhampton,1967: nine year old Nigel Slater loves his mother though she is a hopeless cook, her finest offering being toast whilst he has great culinary aspirations. When she dies of asthma Nigel is left with a distant father but worse is to come when the ‘common’ Mrs. Joan Potter arrives as the Slaters’ cleaner. Nigel fears, rightly, that her aim is to be the next Mrs. Slater and soon he has a new stepmother and is whisked away to the country. Joan is, however, a superb cook but this only makes for rivalry as Nigel, the only boy in his cookery class at secondary school, competes with her to find the way to his father’s heart. A weekend job in a pub kitchen introduces Nigel to an older boy, another great cook and gay like himself, who gives him the confidence and inspiration to leave home after his father’s death and head for the hotel kitchens of London.—don @ minifie-1

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Toast Movie Reviews

A coming-of-age memoir as complicated as TOAST.

The film, Toast, is based upon the autobiographical book, Toast: The Story of a Boy’s Hunger, written by English food writer, journalist and broadcaster, Nigel Slater. It is a memoir of Slater’s early years and his memories of his mother who died when he was just 9 years old.

The book/film is entitled Toast as that was the ONE food his mother was able to successfully cook … and he tells us that a person will always love the one who prepared slices of the warm, crunchy, buttery goodness to you as a child. The young Nigel must’ve held true to this mantra even in childhood, as he never accepted or trusted his father’s new “cleaning lady”, Mrs. Potter (Helena Bonham Carter – Sweeney Todd, The King’s Speech, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), who won her way into his father’s heart with her culinary expertise … much to Nigel’s chagrin.

As Nigel was already interested in food (he’d drool over the exotic cheeses at his local grocer or sneak a flashlight into his bed to look at the mouth-watering pictures in the family cookbooks), he eventually becomes highly competitive with Mrs. Potter in hopes of winning-over his always-distant father.

Toast takes place over a span of ten years and so Nigel is played by two different actors. Young Nigel is played by a remarkable Oscar Kennedy who is making his feature film debut (!!!) while the older, teenage Nigel is played by Freddie Highmore (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Finding Neverland, The Spiderwick Chronicles). Highmore is a great, young actor; but it is surprising to admit that the younger, less-experienced Kennedy outshines him in this film as Kennedy’s Nigel does more of the grieving and Highmore is scripted to do more of the pouting.

Toast isn’t as boring as the title makes it sound; nor is it overly compelling as it turns into a most-conventional, lite-biopic. Bonham Carter is always good and her scheming, competitively outrageous behavior here is the butter on this piece of toast. The film is about Nigel Slater (kind of a blank page as he gets older) but he wouldn’t have become who he is without the provocation of this film’s Kitchen Queen, Mrs. Potter … nor would the film be what it is without Bonham Carter.

Unappealing protagonist

I had never heard of this food “celebrity,” though I am not immune to the charms of cooking and food.

In order to enjoy a movie I have to feel some sympathy with the main character. They don’t have to be the most likable person on the planet, but I have to have a connection to them somehow. Even if they are a strange evil genius, I can usually find my way in and relate.

But this main character was hideous: A spoiled, whiny, bizarre little kid, who expected the world to revolve around him. There is an attempt to make a saint of his inept, sickly mother, but she was despicable as well. The child loathed the father, but despite seeing the father through the lens of that hatred, I felt the most sympathy for that character. Surely he had thoughts of infanticide but did not act on them. Now there’s a saint.

In no sense that this provide any insight into the human experience. I didn’t care about anyone. I was glad when it was over.

Warm, tender, evocative, multi-layered and wonderfully acted

To be perfectly honest, I wasn’t expecting something this good when I tuned in to watch Toast. While it doesn’t quite make my favourite dramas of all-time list, it is for me one of the better programmes airing over the Christmas season. Is Toast sentimental? Yes, in a way I suppose it is. But it is also warm, gentle and tender, not to mention evocative and multi-layered. Toast looks wonderful certainly, as the production values and period detail are really quite pleasing. The photography is very skillful, while the scenery and costumes are beautiful. In general, I did like the music. It did occasionally get a tad over-bearing, but in its more subdued moments it was quite charming and quaint, very like the drama itself. The script is always touching, honest and funny, while the story is engaging throughout and the pacing and direction are also spot-on. The acting is perfect across the board. Oscar Kennedy is wonderful as young Nigel Slater, and while Freddie Highmore as his teenage self is good Kennedy was better. Ken Stott is also winning as his father, and Victoria Hamilton is very touching. Helena Bonham Carter also gives one of her better performances of late. All in all, this is a very absorbing and beautifully done drama. 9/10 Bethany Cox