Brie Larson won the Oscar in 2016 at just 27 in a great performance as a kidnapped mother in The Room, after excelling in The Lives of Grace in 2013. Since then she hasn't landed characters on that level, and has repeated time and time again as Captain Marvel, a rather decaffeinated superheroine. Cocina con química aspired to be the series with which this actress could develop her initial talent again, but it has not been so.

The series has a tasteful mise-en-scene and a generous budget. The story is a dramatic and sociological tour of an era, with the beginning of feminism and the incorporation of women into certain professions to which they did not usually have access. The script is signed by Susanah Grant, who came from writing the remarkable Creedme, and who had in her career scripts starring courageous women as important as Erin Brockovich . The direction is by the young Sarah Adina Smith, who had generated quite a lot of indifference with the action series Hanna, from Amazon Prime.

Cocina con química is enjoyable, but also distant. In good part because the protagonist is as good a professional as she is unempathetic. In principle, this character was supposed to evolve with the romantic plot, but it lacks the magic and wit necessary for the series to take off. There is a peculiar chemistry between the two characters, antagonistic and attractive at the same time, but there is also too much commonplace in the process. The eight episodes become too long, especially the first few, in which there are many minutes of filler. All in all, an aseptic and hygienic series (with the exception of the unpleasant and primal portrayal of the bishop), which falls far short of what it promised.

Claudio Sanchez