jeff-2051 The film is quite good. However, if Nigel is this big of a c*** in real life, I wish him nothing but the most tortuous suffering he deserves. Horrible human.

zee I had never heard of this food "celebrity," though I am not immune to the charms of cooking and food.In order to enjoy a movie I have to feel some sympathy with the main character. They don't have to be the most likable person on the planet, but I have to have a connection to them somehow. Even if they are a strange evil genius, I can usually find my way in and relate.But this main character was hideous: A spoiled, whiny, bizarre little kid, who expected the world to revolve around him. There is an attempt to make a saint of his inept, sickly mother, but she was despicable as well. The child loathed the father, but despite seeing the father through the lens of that hatred, I felt the most sympathy for that character. Surely he had thoughts of infanticide but did not act on them. Now there's a saint.In no sense that this provide any insight into the human experience. I didn't care about anyone. I was glad when it was over.

jadeylady96 This film is spectacular. As one who felt I related to a lot of it despite the difference of time era, it summed up not accepting what life throws at you. You don't have to put up with others if they treat you badly and this is a huge theme people should spread more. You can be whatever you want if you put your mind to it and don't let anyone stand in your way. This film was hard to watch at times for it's flashback's to my own life but definitely glad I found it.

gregorybnyc I think Nigel Slater is the best writer about food in the English language today, and have read many of his cookbooks as though they are novels. I enjoyed TOAST, his memoir growing up in the drab late 50s and early 60s that was post-war England. Slater, the only child in a marriage of a dying mother and a cold and remote father, just makes you wish for a happy ending. Mother can't cook a lick except for making toast and mince pies. The food subjected to middle-class English households is pretty grim. Once mum is firmly dispatched, father engages a house-keeper, played with delicious relish by the wonderful Helena Bonham- Carter. She's a bit coarse, and determined to snag young Nigel's father. She does so with her superb cooking skills. But Nigel's stepmother isn't quite the monster he would have you believe (nor do I recall her being written quite that way in the memoir). In TOAST young Nigel is a sullen and angry boy (yes, his father is a cold fish), but his life is dull, with bad food. He's not abused, or mistreated, or unloved. That is a typical family of that era. I could understand his resentment of his eventual stepmother, but he is stiff-backed and cruel to her and she is mostly agreeable, holding her ground against this low-wattage brat. In the movie, Nigel decides to compete with her as a cook, and she's not having it. She pulls out all the stops and she trumps him, until his father dies. Then the older Nigel is off for his culinary career, vowing never to set eyes on his step-mother again. Frankly, my sympathies were with the stepmother, and not Nigel, as this movie disappointingly droned on. There is much charm and lovely observation in the real Slater's memoir and I wish I had suck to that only. A young Oscar Kennedy makes an impressive film debut as the younger Nigel with Freddie Highmore stuck trying to give the teenage Nigel some interest. Ken Stott is excellent, but ends up with one-note rage as Nigel's father. Victoria Hamilton imbues the role of the dying mother with a wistful sadness. The film belongs to Helena Bonham Carter. Always a good actress, even when she fails (she got Mrs. Lovett in SWEENEY TODD nearly right, but ran off the rails for lack of a real voice to sing this tough part). In a career that is now over two-decades long, she's making an indelible impression in nearly every film she takes on these days, which is terrific. Someone has to fill the shoes of Maggie Smith and Judi Dench, and Carter is more than their rightful successor. Though TOAST sports a good, game cast, it is let down by an ill-conceived approach to this story and a director who lacks a light and sensitive touch to pull it off.