[rating=9.00]
Culinary wunderkind Flynn McGarry has been circling celebrity chef status—and all the good and bad that comes with it—for years now. At the age of 15 he was featured on the cover of the New York Times Magazine chef’s issue, earning both acclaim and backlash for his rise to prominence at such a young age. Now, a new documentary, Chef Flynn, explores McGarry’s prodigious talent in addition to the methods behind his mad genius.
It’s difficult to know what to make of McGarry and his circumstances as the film begins. After a brief introduction to the teenager today, we’re taken back in time to the genesis of his obsession at the age of just 10. What begin as a way to channel his energies after school quickly become a singular focus as he and his young friends began developing menus for a pop-up kitchen run out of his mother’s house.
Young Flynn’s rise as a sort of pop-up king led to significant backlash online, with commenters pointing to his mother’s permissive views on his hobby-turned-obsession. As the years went on and his acclaim grew, would be critics decried Flynn for having the privilege of a mother who bought him all the tools he needed to become something of a culinary genius, tools which many adult chefs can’t even afford themselves.
The critics almost have a point, but it’s not the one they think they’re making. True, he’s lucky to be in a position to have the tools at his disposal, but simply having tools is not the same thing as knowing how to use them. As it quickly becomes apparent, Chef Flynn can use the shit out of his tools. Between the lines of the online criticism, however wrongly it was pointed, are questions about his age, and those are questions worth exploring.
How far is it acceptable to allow our children’s passions to go? Following your bliss is one thing, but shouldn’t bliss be balanced with the multitude of life’s flavors? By allowing young Flynn to pursue cooking at the expense of all else, is he not being deprived the potential for other joys or, simply, the aimless joys of childhood?
These are all questions I grappled with watching Chef Flynn, and they’re questions either directly or indirectly answered by the film. I couldn’t help but worry at noticing that McGarry’s obsession began in earnest following the divorce of his parents; was this merely a way to avoid dealing with emotional traumas? Why are they letting him drop out of school to better focus on learning how to cook?
In the end, however, McGarry’s story isn’t that much different from the adult chefs of the world, many of whom turn to cooking and kitchen work simply because they’ve got no other options left. Chefs, by their nature, are singular in focus, and many of them are, in some ways, stunted emotionally by some cause or another. And then there’s the question of raw genius.
As much as I might’ve wrung my hands at the thought of a child choosing to eschew school or normalcy in pursuit of his dreams, I couldn’t help but wonder where we’d be as a society if Leopold Mozart hadn’t pushed his son to write and perform music at the age of five. We have this cultural tendency to want to box in children and treat them as if every child should have the exact same experiences with their life, which in turn tends to suck hints of genius or natural ability right from them.
Perhaps we need to get better at recognizing and fostering genius when it lets itself be known. What wonders might we have missed out on because we refused to allow budding brilliance to blossom the way it wanted to? McGarry is certainly brilliant, pulling off complex dishes that many adult chefs have not yet mastered. Maybe it’s better, for him and for us, if we allow him to grow in the direction he sees fit.
As McGarry himself puts it, “I had ten years of childhood. I think that that’s enough.” We can roll our eyes and wash ourselves in adult cynicism all we want, but that doesn’t stop McGarry from being better at his job than most of us are at ours. Any hesitation or cynicism I felt was slowly chipped away while watching his rise from young hobbyist to full on phenomenon. In the end, it was nothing less than inspiring watching a young man discover his passions and having the courage to step up and pursue his dreams.
