Because it’s more believable in a fictionalized graphic novel account of the Irish mob in the New York of the 70s to have three women rise through the ranks by luck and happenstance than for it to ever have happened in real life, Andrea Berloff’s directorial debut was adapted from a comic book of the same name written by Ollie Masters and illustrated by Ming Doyle and colorist Jordie Bellaire. Originally released in 2015 on DC’s Vertigo imprint, the chance for the material to be adapted into a film perhaps seemed slim until the post-2017 reckoning of #MeToo. Since that moment in time, Hollywood has been scrambling to commodify the meaning of female empowerment as best as it knows how to (particularly with all that residual misogyny at play).
One of those ways is gathering together the unlikely “girl power” trifecta of Melissa McCarthy, Elisabeth Moss and Tiffany Haddish to play the roles of prison widows Kathy Brennan, Claire Walsh and Ruby O’Carroll, respectively. With Kathy’s husband, Jimmy (Brian d’Arcy James), being the most mild-mannered of the three Irish mobsters who get arrested by the Feds, it soon comes as a surprise that Kathy has a far more iron fist when it pertains to regulating her neighborhood by any means necessary. And when it comes to offering her fellow Irish protection in exchange for being the one to collect their payments instead of the new boss man in charge, Little Jackie (Myk Watford)–not exactly the best nickname for coming across as “intimidating.” It is he who ascends to the throne when Ruby’s husband, Kevin (James Badge Dale), gets locked up with Jimmy and Claire’s physically abusive husband, Rob (Jeremy Bobb). To that point, Claire can’t help but smile when she hears the verdict of the trio’s guilt. For it means three years free of domestic violence.
Of course, it also means small fuckin’ potatoes (Irish stereotype pun intended) coming in on the money front. Quickly realized after the non-fuzzy reception at the local bar after the hearing that finds Kevin’s mother, Helen (Margo Martindale), regarding them, ostracized at the end of the bar, and then getting up to call them cunts as she hobbles out. For yes, there’s no better villain than an Irish mother. Kathy, evidently, included. For though she’s slightly more maternal toward her own two children, she is swift in taking over the Irish pocket of Hell’s Kitchen. That the film is called The Kitchen, obviously, refers to that, but also that old adage, “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.” Then, to be sure, the little dig about a woman’s place being in the kitchen, now turned on its ear as Kathy, Claire and Ruby start to run the show. Claire, however, is decidedly most focused on racking up her body counts than her dividends. And with help from an old flame, Gabriel O’Malley (Domhnall Gleeson), she’s a quick study on how to dispose of corpses after killing them. As for Gabriel, a shell-shocked Vietnam vet known for being something of a loose cannon, his sole reason for returning from out west after fleeing the neighborhood when his hitman ways drew the attention of the cops is to see Claire. For now that she’s technically available, he figured it was now or never.
In truth, “the now” is really all any of these three women have, each one knowing but choosing to ignore that the so-called “empire” they’ve built will be effectively dismantled once their husbands serve their time. Ruby ultimately ends up being the most ruthless in her investment in the “business,” declaring it her duty to her own people (the black population “uptown” in Harlem) to garner as much power as possible. That said, soon the Italian mob is getting into bed with them after they steal their not so hard-won Jewish clients, the ones helming yet another construction job in Midtown. Run by Alfonso Coretti (Bill Camp, not the best casting choice), the Irish girls’ new alliance with Brooklyn is more than their own husbands ever could have expected when they were running things. But naturally, rather than being proud of their wives, their fragile little shrimp dicks wither all the more upon hearing the news that they’ve been bested. For, as Kathy states in yet another instance in this movie of feminist cliche, “They have been telling us forever that we are never going to do anything but have babies.”
In the interim, a divide between Ruby and Kathy forms that ultimately results in one of the key issues with the script: underdevelopment. As though Berloff is trying her best to be the appeasing woman in keeping the narrative as slick and “female positive” as possible. As opposed to, say, actually building upon the implied inevitable war between Ruby’s Harlem army and Kathy’s Irish (and partially Italian) one. And yes, if Scorsese had been directing this, he would’ve had no qualms about making it three hours long. To truly flesh out the shadows of this story left to the darkness in favor of concern about audience attention span, and wrapping everything into a neat bow. And yes, arguably the worst part about The Kitchen is that it still makes one wonder how it might have been handled had an auteur like Scorsese (also known as a man) directed it. Because no, one doesn’t imagine the only female auteur we have, Sofia Coppola (for Greta Gerwig still hasn’t done enough), could have done much better with it either (for the costumes are already on point–though the music could’ve played a more central role, and not fallen prey to the maudlinness of employing Heart’s “Barracuda”–which will forever be tied to 2000’s Charlie’s Angels anyway).
It makes one think of Claire’s statement to Gabriel on committing the perfect murder, “I don’t want you to do it. I want you to teach me how to do it.” Yet it seems you can’t teach a female director about, to quote Bret Easton Ellis, “a medium that really is built for the male gaze and for a male sensibility. I mean, the best art is made under not an indifference to, but a neutrality [toward] the kind of emotionalism that I think can be a trap for women directors.” Raging sexism of this “aphorism” aside, it’s a trap that Berloff clearly got caught in while directing her own script adaptation of The Kitchen. Where the hell is Lina Wertmüller when you need her?
