Sweeter than BARBIE, SUGAR AND STARS is a ragout to riches story.

Well, more a story about just desserts.

Blasting the cliché like Oppenheimer’s contraption that most males dream of being an astronaut or a fireman when they grow up, ever since he was a little boy, Yazid has dreamed of becoming a pastry chef.

Born to a slovenly and selfish mother, he is finally moved to a foster home where he is nourished with love and encouragement. Shielded from the toxic natural parent, Yazid flourishes under the foster family, nurtured and embraced, which enables his indomitable determination and resourcefulness that helps him succeed in the elitist arena of patisserie.

SUGAR AND STARS follows the proven recipe of underdog triumphing over all obstacles, with all the well known ingredients for impediment – racism, jealousy, socioeconomic deprivation.

Cedric Ido’s script whisks up a meringue base of a movie while director Sebastien Tulard delivers a film that relies heavily on treacle emotion and food porn imagery.

Spreading out its hundred minutes plus running time, slow motion montage of beating bowls, whipping cream, oozing chocolate, and oral sets, the zesty grating becomes grating, the pestle and mortar repetitive, grinding the crucial narrative necessity to a pulp.

Cuisin capers are never worked for comedy but rather cruelty as Yazid sweats away in hellish kitchens, his passion slowly elevating him into a purgatory before bursting into pastry paradise by creating an ice sculpture of his demonic mom in the guise of an angel. Huh?

Working for the world’s top chefs from Paris to Monaco, Yazid takes us to some pretty locations, turning SUGAR AND STARS into somewhat of a travelogue as well as a taste tempter.

A little less sugar and a little more spice, a little more star and a little less stodge may have made SUGAR AND STARS more satisfactory.