La Cocina opens on a train, a young woman looking out at a city. It’s filmed in black and white and the frames keep shifting, disconcertingly at first. It’s not supposed to be soothing. The train is part of New York City’s MTA and the subject is a 19-year-old immigrant from Mexico, the sweet-looking Estela (Anna Diaz), who is trying—and failing—to get directions to The Grill, an unremarkable restaurant in Times Square. It is there that she hopes to meet Pedro Ruiz (Raúl Briones), an estranged family friend who might offer Estela a kitchen job. But Ruiz is grappling with some problems of his own, many of which center around the feisty and unobtainable waitress Julia (Rooney Mara). The Mexican director Alonso Ruizpalacios plunges viewers into the hellish back-of-house service, loosely inspired by his own experience working in a kitchen. Over two hours and 15 minutes, the 20-strong staff slowly reach boiling point as their messy lives collide with their American Dream—and all the while, lunch hour looms. There’s also an abortion on the horizon, and $800 missing from the restaurant’s cash register. Who will be blamed? —Elena Clavarino