Diana Kennedy New Documentary

Some may be skeptical of her prominence. “How can it be that a white British woman knows more about Mexican food than anybody else?” Frances McCullough, her Harper & Row editor, asks just minutes into “Diana Kennedy: Nothing Fancy,” debut director Elizabeth Carroll’s recent documentary. The question points to a tension that has roiled beneath the surface of Kennedy’s public image. The film searches for an answer.

Available on demand as of June 19, “Diana Kennedy: Nothing Fancy” has generated near-unanimous praise since its premiere at South by Southwest in 2019. The film won Special Jury Recognition for Excellence in Storytelling at the festival, and it recently received a James Beard nomination. The film has also provoked some dissent from some reviewers for presenting an antiseptic portrait of Kennedy, smoothing over the complications of her legacy.

The film functions as a tender character study of Kennedy in the twilight of her life. Kennedy, who lives off the grid near Zitácuaro in the state of Michoacán, cares little about being liked. Her passions are still blazing, her rules still inflexible: No garlic or kosher salt in your guacamole, for example. She has a moral impetus to preserve the environment, wanting to ensure a just future when she’s no longer around. In one scene, she brags that she once sent an American food magazine 30 corrections for an issue with enchiladas on the cover. The sequence doubles as a reckoning with her mortality. “What are you going to do when I’m gone?” she asks. “Who is else going to start screaming? Nobody!”