The Bear, created by Christopher Storer follows decorated chef Carmen Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White) as he returns to his North River home in Chicago and takes over his recently deceased brothers failing - but loved - restaurant; “The Original Beef of ChicagoLand”. Despite having incredibly tense moments, The Bear seamlessly blends comedy and drama, creating depth to its narrative and characters, perhaps the most important being the complexities of Carmen (affectionately nicknamed Carmy) Berzatto.
Jeremy Allen White’s performance of an anxiety-ridden, grief-stricken chef is engaging, the frequent use of profanity and his short temper is stressful yet entertaining to watch. The extended metaphor of the fearsome predator presents this psychological struggle, acting as a weight that follows Carmy around as shown in the season finale ‘Braciole’. What creator Storer executes is the mystery that surrounds each character, including the restaurant itself, we are only given glimpses into the history or personal lives of the people and this serves to increase the tension and rocky relationships. Carmy himself is aware of his mental health struggles, as he tells his sister Natalie (Abby Elliot); ‘I was throwing up every day before work…I kind of dug it”, bringing his love-hate relationship with his own psyche to the forefront. What stands out as one of the best performances in recent years is White’s monologue in the finale after the tense events of the previous episode. Spanning almost seven minutes of just White explaining the immense amount of effort and work it has taken for him to get where he is the culinary world, only to end up running his brother’s failing restaurant as the camera slowly tracks into a close up, allowing the audience to emotionally connect with Carmy and his battle with anxiety and grief over the loss of not only Michael but his old way of life, is solely down to White’s performance.
The Bear also showcases how the process of making food from virtually nothing connects us with ourselves and other people. We see Sydney (Ayo Edebiri) begrudgingly admit that the best meal she ever had was from Carmy’s restaurant in New York as she cooks Chilean style sea bass. The camera almost becomes the viewer’s eyes, instead of focusing on Sydney’s face as she speaks, it just cannot help watching her assemble and combine ingredients. The Bear takes advantage of this desire and fills stressful, angry, funny scenes with close up shots of cooking, ingredients or prepared meals. Aside from the main storyline of Carmy and the restaurant, we see pastry chef/primarily bread baker Marcus (Lionel Boyce) journey to find ‘the perfect doughnut’. During this narrative, Marcus is hypnotised by watching pastry chefs at a bakery bake and prepare doughnuts for opening. Through the use of perspective and the empathy surrounding the character, we too become infatuated with the creation of these doughnuts, something trivial and unimportant suddenly becomes the prime focus, filling the shot with bright colours and glossy textures. Overall, cinematographer Andrew Wehde, creates a story within these separate shots, making food an artform of its own.
