Upper Middlebrow

Upper Middlebrow


Episode 41: “Borrowing the Bigness,” or Sandra Nettlebeck’s Mostly Martha

January 01, 2024

Sandra Nettlebeck’s 2001 film is beautifully shot and carries its narrative in a bucket effectively, following its fiery protagonist into the thickets of surrogate parenthood. Martha is a brilliant chef who struggles to take both compliments and criticism, and she’s been dragooned into therapy by her boss. This unstable stability is complicated by the arrivals of Martha’s niece, Lina, and a charismatic but erratic Italian sous chef. The UMBers admire the performance of Martina Gedeck and talk about where this film sits in our roster of foodie films.