What's Cooking?

For so brisk and entertaining a film, sharp in its observations but light in its touch, Cooking has unexpected substance and is a formidable accomplishment in that it brings dimension to its nearly 40 principal characters.

A big-hearted celebration of the we're-all-in-this- together American way.

Her (Chadha) film tastily demonstrates that variety is the spice of not only American life, but of American cuisine.

More interesting as a sociological study than successful as a movie, What's Cooking? gets more involving as it strolls along.

If Chadha never quite overcomes her cliches, her good-natured humor and familial faith gives it a warm, winsome dimension.

Goes overboard in its presentation of supposed reality.

Trades in sitcom stereotypes and crosscuts predictably from family to family as if under the misapprehension that equal time is a dramatic principle.