Love Charlie: The Rise and Fall of Chef Charlie Trotter

Writer and Director: Rebecca Halpern

At some point in Rebecca Halpern’s 2021 film, Love Charlie, The Rise and Fall of Chef Charlie Trotter, we are shown old footage of the American celebrity chef Trotter lovingly tweezering flower petals onto an artistic assemblage of tiny mounds of food. A fellow chef, watching these images of Trotter trying to get minute balls of ripe avocado out of what is presumably an avocado baller, chuckles gleefully. For the viewer, however, it’s not particularly chucklesome, and to be honest, the whole film feels rather like that.

It’s a conventional film told in a conventional manner. Quite how much Love, Charlie will appeal to audiences unfamiliar with celebrity chef culture in America is to be seen. Image-wise, it returns again and again to sunny pictures of Trotter’s childhood. The whole thing is hagiographic in tone and avoids asking tricky questions. Trotter’s adored father Bob was his great supporter, becoming his first business partner when Trotter opened his first restaurant. It’s easy enough to imagine the notoriously driven Trotter forever seeking parental approval long after his father’s death. The film could, but doesn’t, offer any analysis of this, but simply notes his fury for being awarded 2 but never 3 Michelin stars. Talking heads include his adoring first wife, Lisa Ehrlich, who proves an appealing witness to Trotter’s early dynamism and charm. It is telling, however, that neither his second or third wives appear, other than in glamorous photos.

The story arc is all there in the film’s subtitle. Illinois-born Trotter rose to the height of his fame as an innovative chef in Chicago, starring in the PBS TV show, The Kitchen Sessions with Charlie Trotter and writing 14 recipe books. Somewhere along the line, his life starts to unravel and in 2013 he is found dead at the age of 54.

Most of the other talking heads are chefs who worked with Trotter professionally and who, for the most part, are keen to describe him in his glory days. Footage of Trotter at work, as the chef dashes between work stations, barking commands, seems ordinary enough to viewers brought up on charming-but-impossible celebrity chefs, but Rebecca Halpern makes clear how new Trotter’s approach was at the time. In particular, the film stresses his extraordinary commitment to his work and his fierce attention to detail. There are certainly some lovely images of exquisitely presented food. It is Trotter who pioneers the tasting menu, and insists of top quality produce. He was ahead of his time, banning cream and butter in his recipes.

Fellow chefs, Grant Achatz, Wolfgang Puck and Emeril Lagasse all have much to say about the inspiring side of Trotter. But gradually the picture darkens, with descriptions of the extreme fear he generated in his kitchens, talk of his intensity, of his being like a tornado, a control freak, even a tyrant. Trotter emerges as an oddly remote figure – the film never captures him as a relaxed adult. But perhaps he never was.

There is mention of lawsuits against him from disgruntled staff who feel they’re being exploited. There is some fascinating footage of Trotter viciously rejecting from his restaurant one of these former staff members, a younger chef, now returning as a diner. Trotter’s behaviour is clearly out of control.

Halpern fleshes out the film with footage to illustrate the financial crisis of 2008 and, more egregiously, of 9/11. Trotter could have been there, we’re told, but is saved because a colleague insisted on his catching a later flight.

Halpern suffers a collapse, but insists on discharging himself from hospital to return to work. It is little surprise that his health worsens. In later images he appears a different man, dishevelled, bloated: obviously gravely ill. He’s found unresponsive: his death pronounced as a stroke. There’s a certain amount of inevitable speculation about other possible causes of death, but Halpern is keen to stick to the orthodox account. There is far too much dull coverage of his funeral. This 90 minute film could much better fit into a 60 minute structure.

Love,Charlie: The Rise and Fall of ChefCharlieTrotter will be available on Digital Download from 14th April.