Is the new Netflix documentary worth watching?
Becoming Gordon Ramsay ★★
“Let’s go,” Gordon Ramsay urges everyone around him, including himself, throughout this docuseries. The British celebrity chef is embarking on a six-month journey to open a massive dining complex featuring five different restaurants atop London skyscraper 22 Bishopsgate. Between work and family, there is no time to rest, no room to contemplate. It’s the same with this program, which alternates between home and construction site, media work and family events. There’s a lot going on, but this profanity-laden narrative is rarely explanatory. It lacks taste.
Directed by Dionne Bromfield and produced by Studio Ramsay Global, the six episodes are vividly produced and offer an expertly crafted window into the “real Gordon Ramsay.” That infamous anger? It seemed that he had softened, and besides, everything was in the service of achieving perfection with ease. The series draws inspiration from Netflix’s previous success, 2023 Beckhamused carefully orchestrated but still entertaining banter between David and Victoria to create the illusion of insight. We are in the age of celebrity-controlled documentaries.
Tana, Ramsay’s wife of 30 years, is a thoughtful presence; mostly supportive, occasionally sarcastic. He too says 22 Bishopsgate is a “major undertaking”, but frankly that narrative is overblown so the show cannot possibly highlight just how vast Ramsay’s global restaurant and media empire is. It constantly introduces new dining venues and reality television shows; No setback could stop him. Missing here is a clear discussion of how it got to this point. Bromides about hard work are enough.
It is both disappointing and not surprising that Ramsay, a natural screen actor, has reached this point. Television gave him a profile thanks to a British documentary series that was still fascinating in 1999. Boiling point (YouTube is your best option). This was the uncut Ramsay, an intriguing culinary obsessive who still spends every night in the alley. He has since learned to market himself and control the narrative. Becoming Gordon Ramsay there is no narrator, and occasionally a voice is heard off-screen with a question. Ramsay does it all.
One can watch Ramsay taking his daughter Tilly shopping for her first chef’s whites, or pointing out flaws in the setup of the Asian-inspired Lucky Cat, the largest of the five businesses. But an increasing steady stream of authoritative, superficial celebrity documentaries shaped by their subject matter speaks to the broader issue of who controls the flow of information in today’s world. “The things we do for food,” an exasperated Ramsay says at one point. He says this jokingly, but maybe the problem is actually his hunger for control.
Becoming Gordon Ramsay currently airing Netflix.
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Craig Mathieson is the TV, film and music writer for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect with: X.
