The documentary “Pressure Cooker” could have been gobbled up by Hollywood and turned into a sappy feature. But it wasn’t. So audiences can discover the real uplift in a story of high school students inspired to cook — yes, cook — their way to a better future.
“Pressure Cooker” is a heart-grabbing, awe-inspiring work that needs no embellishment.
Mark Becker and Jennifer Grausman’s finely crafted film takes us through the metal detectors at Philadelphia’s Frankford High School and into Room 325, where Wilma Stephenson — loud, ornery, but full of love and pride for her students — teaches culinary arts.
Dicing and chopping, sauteeing and souffleing, these kids get to school early, train over spring break, and learn to think “upscale!” (as Stephenson barks) in their quest for scholarships that will gain them entry to colleges and cooking institutes around the land.
The obstacles are daunting: Frankford’s staggering dropout rate, the students’ hard-luck stories, a sense of stasis and entrapment stitched into the fabric of the northeast Philly neighborhood like the elevated train line that cuts through it.
“Pressure Cooker” focuses on a group of seniors in their jackets and toques, striving to make the grade, and the scholarship money, as Stephenson counsels, cajoles, and criticizes their cuisine.
There’s Erica Gaither, a cheerleader who has suffered through a messy childhood and has responsibility for her blind, physically disabled younger sister. There’s Tyree Dudley, all-state star of the Frankford Pioneers, cooking fried chicken for his single mom, and looking at the culinary arts program as a viable career path beyond football.
And there’s Fatoumata Dembele, four years in Philadelphia from West Africa, learning English, getting straight A’s, dealing with a father who believes that his daughter should be cooking at home, that she shouldn’t even be in school.
The film doesn’t condescend to these kids; it respects them. And it is respect — and self-respect — that the irascible Stephenson hands her students along with the whisks, the knives, the saucepans and the serving trays.
“PRESSURE COOKER.”
Not rated. 1 hour, 39 minutes. Documentary. Directed by Mark Becker and Jennifer Grausman; with Wilma Stephenson, Thomas Krichel, Fatoumata Dembele, Erica Gaither, Tyree Dudley and others. Opens today at Starz FilmCenter.
