“ . . . when he’s ready to heal, we’re ready to let him.”

I have some issues with the movie Burnt, but maybe that’s why I’m adding it to my Top 5 Bradley Cooper watchlist.

Bradley plays Adam Jones, a talented but surly chef who trained at the best restaurant in Paris only to lose it all due to youthful arrogance and ambition.

As penance, he goes to New Orleans where he vows to shuck a million oysters. We meet him just as he’s achieving that goal and then follow him to London where he hunts down the ghosts from his past and revives his dream of earning a third Michelin star.

The cast of this movie is phenomenal: Daniel Bruhl as Tony, Matthew Rhys as Montgomery Reese, Emma Thompson as Adam’s drug tester/pseudo therapist, Uma Thurman in a small but convincing role as a restaurant critic, Alicia Vikander as Adam’s old flame.

Sienna Miller is understatedly beautiful as Helene, Adam’s love interest and, at first, reluctant saucier, who he poaches from another restaurant. I recently saw the movie Factory Girl for the first time, in which Sienna plays Edie Sedgwick, and ever since, I’ve been convinced that she’s been underestimated as an actress. Her portrayal of Helene is totally unself-conscious, even without makeup and a choppy bob haircut with her head shaved underneath.

In the year 2000, Anthony Bourdain’s tell-all autobiography Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly was a sensation. Fine dining had always been viewed as something delicate, refined and civilized, but Bourdain threw open the kitchen doors to reveal the chaos, the passion, the mania, the trauma, even the mental illness.

For this movie, the actors trained with real-life hothead chef Gordon Ramsay. Bradley portrays Adam’s rage very convincingly, which is one of the reasons it’s hard to watch.

If my boss assaulted me the way he does Helene on her first day, I would be out of there. But just as in the TV series The Bear, the yelling and arguing are the culture of the kitchen. Expressing emotion is part of the passion, but learning to control it is the true mastery.

What I dislike about this movie is what I’ll call its “Weinstein-ness.” Knowing what we now know about Harvey Weinstein, it’s easy to draw parallels between the win-at-all-costs hubris of a superstar chef and the abuses of an Oscar-hungry producer. Compared to other Weinstein movies, this one doesn’t have gratuitous nudity (which is refreshing), but it does include a blatant product placement and essentially an informercial for sous vide cookers smack dab in the middle of the story.

My biggest complaint is that the movie doesn’t take advantage of this stellar cast. The actors do incredible jobs with their parts, but the focus of the story is too centered on Adam’s feelings (much like the restaurant in the movie and the producer in real life). Instead of an ego study of the main character, this would’ve been far more interesting as a true ensemble piece.

But that being said, Bradley is such a strong actor that he is able to portray the deep pain behind Adam’s rage. We know there is a loving heart in there, so when he’s ready to heal, we’re ready to let him.