In Stéphane Ly-Cuong’s delightful debut, In the Nguyen Kitchen, the dreams are as big and bright as a Technicolor musical, but reality bites with the chill of a supermarket’s frozen food aisle. The film introduces us to Yvonne Nguyen, a French-Vietnamese actress and singer whose ambitions of stage stardom are stalled.
Instead of a Parisian theater, her stage is a local grocery store, where she sings jingles to promote Vietnamese spring rolls. Her life takes another downturn when her boyfriend, tired of her artistic pursuits, ends their relationship. This leaves Yvonne with little choice but to move back into her mother’s apartment, located above the family’s Vietnamese restaurant.
Here, the film establishes its primary tension: Yvonne’s quest for a creative life clashes with her mother’s pragmatism and the entertainment industry’s narrow-mindedness. The story is a heartfelt comedy, with Yvonne’s aspirations bursting onto the screen in colorful, fantastical musical numbers that feel like a direct nod to the works of Jacques Demy.
The Kitchen as a Stage
The emotional core of the film is the complex relationship between Yvonne and her mother, Ma. Their dynamic is a vivid portrait of generational and cultural friction, brought to life by phenomenal performances. Ma’s perspective is shaped by trauma; having escaped Vietnam by boat, she sees her daughter’s artistic career as a dangerous fantasy.
Her pragmatism is a shield, and her sharp-tongued remarks are a flawed attempt to protect Yvonne from the disappointment she assumes is inevitable. The film wisely centers their world in the family kitchen. My own grandmother’s kitchen was a place of unspoken affection, where a bowl of soup communicated more than words ever could, and Ly-Cuong captures that feeling perfectly.
The cinematography frames the kitchen as a warm, steamy sanctuary, a stark contrast to the cold audition rooms Yvonne frequents. The sound design is particularly effective. The diegetic sounds of clanking utensils, sizzling woks, and bubbling broth create their own symphony, the true score of their lives.
This grounded, sensory world makes the performances from Clotilde Chevalier as Yvonne and Anh Tran-Nghia as Ma feel deeply authentic. Their chemistry allows them to navigate witty banter and profound emotional beats, conveying a complicated history in every shared glance.
Casting Call for a Cliché
In the Nguyen Kitchen uses its light, comedic framework to launch a sharp critique of stereotyping within the arts. The film situates itself within a specific French cultural context, gently challenging a cinematic landscape that has often rendered minority experiences invisible. Yvonne’s professional life is a series of frustrating obstacles that highlight this reality.
She is turned away from an audition for Marie Antoinette Disco Queen because her appearance does not fit the casting director’s limited, historically white vision of France. Then, a seemingly perfect opportunity appears: a major role in a new musical. The part, however, is a collection of tired stereotypes named “Lotus Flower,” described as an “enigmatic mistress of the Far East.” The film’s satire is at its peak during this process.
In a brilliant scene that is both funny and painful, the director asks Yvonne to sing in her “mother tongue” to find some “deeper truth.” Having a limited Vietnamese vocabulary, she resorts to singing the restaurant’s menu items. This sequence cleverly subverts the inspirational audition trope, exposing how an industry can fetishize a performer’s heritage without valuing its substance. Yvonne is trapped, needing the work but facing the erosion of her identity to get it.
A Rhapsody of Flavors and Feelings
Yvonne’s story arc is not about landing the big role; it is about finding her own voice. This narrative choice feels distinctly aligned with the sensibilities of independent cinema, prioritizing internal growth over external validation. A more mainstream film might have ended with her triumphantly reforming the stereotypical role from within. Instead, this story finds its climax in personal reconciliation.
Yvonne learns to build an identity that honors her Vietnamese roots and her French upbringing, a process that culminates in a quiet, powerful moment of acceptance from her mother, who finally asks her, “go and sing for me.” The musical numbers are a highlight, echoing the whimsical, candy-colored style of French classics like The Young Girls of Rochefort.
The visual contrast between these dream-like sequences and the grounded realism of the kitchen scenes works beautifully. The film’s ultimate message is about composing a life from the notes of one’s past and the melody of one’s own dreams. It suggests that true identity is like a complex recipe, a careful blend of inherited flavors and personal taste.
In the Nguyen Kitchen is a 2024 French musical comedy-drama film that premiered at the Festival 2 Cinéma de Valenciennes on September 30, 2024. It was released in French theaters on March 5, 2025.
Full Credits
Director: Stéphane Ly-Cuong
Writers: Stéphane Ly-Cuong, Christine Khandjian
Producers and Executive Producers: Amélie Quéret
Cast: Clotilde Chevalier, Anh Tran-Nghia, Leanna Chea, Linh-Dan Pham, Thomas Jolly, Camille Japy, Marie-Thérèse Priou
Director of Photography (Cinematographer): Alexandre Icovic
Editors: Tuong Vi Nguyen-Long
Composer: Thuy-Nhan Dao, Clovis Schneider
The Review
In the Nguyen Kitchen
In the Nguyen Kitchen is a wonderfully charming and heartfelt debut from Stéphane Ly-Cuong. It blends whimsical, Jacques Demy-inspired musical numbers with a genuinely moving story about family and identity. Led by two fantastic performances, the film offers a sharp, funny critique of industry typecasting without ever feeling preachy. It’s a beautifully crafted story that finds its resolution not in professional triumph, but in the quiet victory of self-acceptance. This is a thoughtful and delightful film that will leave you smiling.
PROS
- The chemistry between Clotilde Chevalier and Anh Tran-Nghia as the central daughter-mother duo is authentic and powerful.
- The film’s emotional core, focused on family, identity, and cultural inheritance, is handled with genuine warmth and nuance.
- It uses humor and satire effectively to critique racism and stereotypes in the entertainment industry without becoming heavy-handed.
- The colorful, whimsical musical numbers are a stylistic delight and a loving homage to classic French musicals.
CONS
- The story follows some familiar beats of a struggling artist and generational conflict, which may feel conventional to some viewers.
- While a strength, the consistently light and comedic tone might underplay the severity of the systemic issues the film addresses for some audiences.
