The saddest thing about Tassos Boulmetis' A Touch of Spice may be how well it lends itself to terrible food metaphors. For example, one could mention how warmed over and bland it is, or how the main ingredient appears to be corn. It's a cheap way to critique a film, but as the film itself is filled with far too many characters who pepper their speech with such would-be colorful analogies, spewing out aphorism after aphorism, it seems fitting. That's not to suggest that the film is without its redeeming qualities. It's well shot and well acted, with occasionally effective close-ups of food and faces that convey its themes far more effectively than the torrent of florid language. It touches upon the tumult of Greek and Turkish shared history in a dramatically cohesive and evenhanded manner, and with a resonant sense of melancholy. Female characters, however, are given short shrift. Saime's (Basak Köklükaya) metaphorical import does little to alleviate the sense that this vaguely drawn love interest exists only to the extent that she spurs the endless musings and occasional actions of the film's hero. Bits of low humor fall flat, including a truly dreadful running gag about Parkinson's disease. The filmmaker expresses something valuable with his untidy grappling with tradition and history. Boulmetis' deep-seated reverence for family life, with all its attendant joys and pains, is apparent, but the film, with its Miramax-ready dewy-eyed children and colorful codgers, collapses under the weight of heavy-handed symbolism.