Actor and director Jon Favreau examines just how powerful and problematic social media can be in his new film “Chef,” which hits theaters Friday and hilariously portrays the destruction and re-birth of a career in the digital world.
In this exclusive scene published on Mashable, chef Carl Casper (Favreau)’s 11-year-old son Percy teaches him to use Twitter and discovers a food critic’s disastrous review has gone viral, pushing Casper into full social-media meltdown. The chef subsequently loses his job and goes into business on his own, which his son spreads word about through — of course — social media.
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Favreau wrote and directed the film, which stars Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson, John Leguizamo, Dustin Hoffman, and Sofia Vergara. It claimed the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival Audience Award and premiered in New York last month.
“I wanted to tell a story that also captured where we are in time and the language we use,” Favreau said at the premiere. “In ‘Swingers,’ we used answering machines to convey that — with ‘Chef,’ it made sense for Percy to be a social media rock star and the audience gets that.”
Check out “Chef” in theaters starting Friday.