Movie: Woman on Top (2000)

Penelope Cruz plays Isabella. Suffering of constant motion sickness, Isabella is severely limited in her activities. She is raised in the kitchen, learns to cook and taking pity on her, the sea goddess Yemenja gives her the gift of amazing cooking. She meets a man, Torinho and they fall in love, but he's an asshole. Because of her motion sickness, Isabella always has to drive, lead while dancing, take the stairs, and be on top during sex. Feeling demasculated, Torinho cheats because he likes to be in charge. Isabella leaves him, goes to San Francisco, stays with Monica, a transsexual woman and incredibly selfless and supportive friend. She lands a job as a cooking instructor, catches the eye of a tv producer, Cliff, and enchanted by her beauty, Cliff offers her a cooking show. Torinho follows her and begs for forgiveness. There's a good line where Isabella is talking about how miserable she is that she can't forget her husband, she says something along the lines of, "We are not in love, it is a curse!"

Eh. I wanted to see more food, and I didn't want Penelope to go back to her husband. The movie was very one-dimensional, none of the other characters had any depth. I would have liked to see more food. There's a brief moment of food porn where Isabella and Torinho stuff a fresh fish with a cornmeal like mixture, wrap it in banana leaves and bake it. They pull it out and cut into the leaves to reveal the fish... but we never get to see the completed fish!

Some parts were really cheesy, not cheese cheesy, plain ol' cheesy. It was failed magical realism.

I like that Isabella essentially got what she wanted in the end, to be with the man she loved and standing on equal ground. She finishes every cooking show with a tag line, "and for the most important ingredient, share it with someone you love", I guess its cute.