The Avila Family Film Analysis

Journal 1
What’s cooking?
Explain the representation of women and their roles in their families. Explain the role of the generational conflict. How does the setting design tell about the characters?
The film What’s cooking? is about four different families all coming from different cultures, but focuses primarily on the women of each. We have a Jewish mother who is trying to accept the fact that her daughter is a homosexual and trying to eases the acceptance. Then we have the Nguyens, the mother follows the Vietnamese traditions really tightly and depends on her eldest son to help guide her young children. In the Avila family we see Elizabeth, whose macho husband has left her for her cousin and has found consolation with a colleague. In the Williamses the wife is dealing with an infidelity from the husband as well as putting up with an annoying mother in law. These family problems show us that every women has the same problems no matter what ethnicity they are or culture.
Throughout the film we see generational conflict. In the Williamses's family we see a conflict between the wife and the mother in law when they were arguing if the turkey was ready. The mother in law has different ways, “old styles” of
It is her egoistic attitude and her actions that make the audience feel bad and sympathize her. We can also sympathize when she cuts her wrist because Joe has gone out to work on the movie script with Betty and thinks he is cheating on her. She makes the audience feel bad for her. When she finds out that there will be no film she goes crazy in disbelief In the last scene we see a fade in of Norma’s face this causes her to look and seem crazy with the help of the lighting. This makes the audience feel somewhat compassionate and sympathy for