Patisserie Coin de rue Review

Patisserie Coin de rue

Japanese Title: 洋菓子店コアンドル

Chinese Title: 幸福洋果子

Year: 2011

Language: Japanese

Synopsis:

Tomura (Yosuke Eguchi) is a culinary teacher and a guidebook writer. He used to be a legendary patissier but has quit making cakes since eight years ago. He visits his friend Yuriko’s (Keiko Toda) café Coin de rue when a girl named Natsume (Yu Aoi) suddenly comes.

Natsume travels all the way from Kagoshima to Tokyo to look for her boyfriend Umi who works at Coin de rue. To her dismay, she learns that Umi has already left and no one would tell her where he’d gone. Upon seeing the job hiring notification at the café and determined to bring Umi back home, Natsumi decides to work there while looking for her boyfriend.

Yuriko asks her to bake and everyone, including Tomura, tastes her cake. The cake, unfortunately, doesn’t meet the café’s high standards. After that, she is asked to taste one of the café’s cakes. To her amazement, the cake tastes much better than her own cake. She begs Yuriko to let her stay and to teach her to bake delicious cakes, to which the latter reluctantly agrees. This marks the start of Natsume’s rediscovery of her passion.

Cheerfulnuts’ Review:

I got excited when I found out that Yosuke Eguchi starred in this movie. I saw some of his shows and I greatly admire his skills. On the other hand, it was my first time to see Yu Aoi. Despite my being unfamiliar with her, she steals the scene every time she appears. I’m not really “in love” with Natsume, but she is a very interesting character.

I wish the movie has stayed more on Natsume’s friendship with Tomura. It would be interesting to see their friendship grow and Tomura becoming a happier person. There are so many plot holes in the movie that it makes the movie a bit unrealistic. Why does Mariko despise Natsume? Why is Natsume so eager to take Umi back home? What’s with the old regular customer’s ambivalent attitude towards Natsume?

The movie does have a poignant moment. When Natsume heard a customer say “oishi” (delicious) after eating their cake, it made her shed tears. It was a very moving scene. She suddenly understood how cakes could bring happiness to people. It gave baking much more meaning.

Patisserie is not an exciting movie, but it’s not boring either. Despite its flaws, it’s still watchable. I would recommend this movie to fans of Yosuke Eguchi and Yu Aoi. However, hungry viewers/cake lovers may also want to give this movie a try. The cakes are very pleasant to look at that they can captivate any hungry viewer. The camera’s constant focus on the cakes made me utter “wow” repeatedly in my seat.

My conclusion: give this movie a try. But if you don’t, you’re not missing anything.

Cheerfulnuts’ Verdict:

5 out of 10 stars

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