The Hundred-Foot Journey (2014)
Directed by Lasse Hallström
A story centered around an Indian family who moves to France and opens a restaurant across the street from a Michelin-starred French restaurant.
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3 films that influenced The Hundred-Foot Journey
What critics say influenced The Hundred-Foot Journey
For anyone who didn’t see Ratatouille, there are helpful reminders that "food is memories."
A recurring motif in the movie is the idea of tradition and memories living on through cuisine — the entire film could be based on that scene in “Ratatouille” where Anton Ego tries the ratatouille.
The clunky Parisian sequences disturb the heretofore graceful flow of the piece (a guest appearance by Ratatouille's Remy might have helped), but all is not lost.
Like the food-centric films "Babette's Feast," "Big Night" and even "Ratatouille," the food in "Journey" plays a starring role, but the beauty and romance is in the spirit of the creative process than the consumption.
If we learned anything from food-centric crowd-pleasers like Ratatouille or Chocolat, it’s that unexpected challengers will eventually bend uncompromising traditions and satisfy their opponents’ deepest indulgences.
Granted, such flicks do show up from time to time, such as this summer's "Chef," while other years have offered up the likes of "Ratatouille," "Julie and Julia," "Like Water for Chocolate" and "No Reservations."
Set in an obscenely bucolic south of France (the misty-eyed views make Ridley Scott's A Good Year look like a gritty Ken Loach production), the story centres on culinary whiz Hassan Kadam (Manish Dayal), whose father opts to open a curry house across the street from a celebrated French restaurant.
Maybe it just wore me down by being pleasant enough and a perfectly safe effort all around, and maybe it was the setting that made it feel a lot like Ridley Scott's "A Good Year."
Adapted by screenwriter Steven Knight (“Locke”) from Richard C. Morais’ book, “Journey” is less concerned with what Hassan knows than what he can learn about French cuisine.
The film has far less going on in it than Steven Knight's last screenplay, "Locke," and that was set entirely inside and just outside of a moving car.
If this Old World foodie fairy tale feels like an odd fit for screenwriter Steven Knight — best known for his gritty London underworld thrillers, and coming off an unusually adventurous directing debut with “Locke” — it’s worth recalling that his scripts for the much edgier “Eastern Promises” and “Dirty Pretty Things” were directly concerned with the hostilities bred in and around specific immigrant communities.
Based on Richard C. Morais’s 2010 best-seller, adapted for the screen by Steven Knight (“Locke”), it’s directed by Lasse Hallstrom, who serves up so many mouth-watering scenes – like a surprisingly seasoned omelet, steaming boeuf bourguignon and perfectly plated pigeon with truffles – that the lush photography of Linus Sandgren deserves special mention, along with A.R. Rahman’s lively score.
This film is based on a novel by Richard C. Morais that’s been described as a fusion of “Ratatouille’’ and “Slumdog Millionaire’’: Screenwriter Steven Knight of the gritty “Locke” created the original British version of “Who Wants To Be a Millionaire,’’ while Oscar-winning “Slumdog Millionaire’’ composer A.H. Rahman gives “The Hundred-Foot Journey” a lively score.
But to get there, one of Hollywood’s screenwriters du jour, Steven Knight (“Locke”), relies on conflicts as starkly drawn as a combat movie’s.