What's Cooking?

Set in the Fairfax district of Los Angeles, What's Cooking? follows four families from different backgrounds as they prepare their separate Thanksgiving dinners on the same day. The Nguyens clash with a son they see as too Americanized, while the Avilas try to bring an estranged husband and wife back together at the table. In the Williams household, a politically connected couple work to keep a family crisis hidden from a visiting grandmother, and the Seeligs struggle with their daughter's relationship with the woman she lives with. Across the four homes, the holiday meal becomes a meeting point for old tensions and new disagreements.

Gurinder Chadha directed the film and wrote the screenplay with Paul Mayeda Berges, with Jeffrey Taylor producing. It was the first of Chadha's feature films in a run that continued with Bend It Like Beckham, Bride & Prejudice, Paris Je T'aime, Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging, Viceroy's House, Blinded by the Light and Christmas Karma. The cast of 49 credited performers includes Julianna Margulies, Mercedes Ruehl, Kyra Sedgwick, Alfre Woodard, Maury Chaykin and Estelle Harris. Made in the United Kingdom and the United States, the film runs 110 minutes and was released in January 2000.

On IMDb it holds a rating of 6.8 from around 3,100 votes. On TMDB its rating is 5.5 from 31 votes. A film critics' score of 6.5 from 66 reviews places it above the audience figure on TMDB, though somewhat below the IMDb rating.