The Hundred-Foot Journey
Directed by: Lasse Hallström
Written by: Steven Knight - based on the book by Richard C. Morais
Starring: Helen Mirren, Om Puri, Manish Dayal, Charlotte Le Bon, Amit Shah, Farzana Dua Elahe, Dillon Mitra, Aria Pandya, Michel Blanc, Clément Sibony
Drama - 122 min
Written by: Steven Knight - based on the book by Richard C. Morais
Starring: Helen Mirren, Om Puri, Manish Dayal, Charlotte Le Bon, Amit Shah, Farzana Dua Elahe, Dillon Mitra, Aria Pandya, Michel Blanc, Clément Sibony
Drama - 122 min
In memorable food movies, the food rises to the level of supporting character. Think back to Big Night (1996), Like Water for Chocolate (1992), or even Sideways (2004). I remember the dishes as much as I remember any character, same for the wine in Sideways. The Hundred-Foot Journey is the latest entry in the food movie genre but it might as well be called Chocolat 2: Chocolat Returns. They share the same director, Lasse Hallström, and feature new arrivals to an insular town treated as invaders bringing strange, exotic flavors, which wake up the community to new tastes. The Hundred-Foot Journey is not as effective as Chocolat simply because this tale is as predictable as a McDonald’s meal.
The star power of The Hundred-Foot Journey is not Helen Mirren cast in the lead role. It is from producers Steven Spielberg and Oprah Winfrey working together for the first time since 1985’s The Color Purple. Based on the eponymous novel by Richard C. Morais, The Hundred-Foot Journey features a refugee family from India planting roots and a new restaurant in a small village in southern France. Coincidentally, their new restaurant is directly across the street from a French haute cuisine and Michelin star rated restaurant run by Madame Mallory (Mirren, 2012's Hitchcock).
The star power of The Hundred-Foot Journey is not Helen Mirren cast in the lead role. It is from producers Steven Spielberg and Oprah Winfrey working together for the first time since 1985’s The Color Purple. Based on the eponymous novel by Richard C. Morais, The Hundred-Foot Journey features a refugee family from India planting roots and a new restaurant in a small village in southern France. Coincidentally, their new restaurant is directly across the street from a French haute cuisine and Michelin star rated restaurant run by Madame Mallory (Mirren, 2012's Hitchcock).
The culture clash is immediate with close-mindedness and stubbornness ruling the day. Madame Mallory maliciously buys up all the seafood at the market and the Indian family, led by patriarch Papa (Om Puri, 2012's The Reluctant Fundamentalist), retaliates by blasting Bollywood tunes and erecting a tacky Taj Mahal façade out front; the sort of gimmick abhorred by uptight, snooty food snobs. This back and forth tit-for-tat impairs the growing Romeo and Juliet friendship forming between Hassan (Manish Dayal), the Indian restaurant’s young chef, and Marguerite (Charlotte Le Bon), the French restaurant’s sous chef.
How will the two sides settle their petty differences? Food of course! Culinary passions have always and will continue to bridge even the deepest cultural chasms. The turning point is a vandalism/assault episode spurred by French xenophobia. This scene resonates with even more impact if you’ve been reading the papers lately about expanding anti-Semitism in France. Madame Mallory may be comfortable with and prefer to maintain her status as a big fish in a small pond, but she respects France and food enough to know the rivalry should remain in the kitchen.
French cooking intrigues Hassan. He wants to learn the secrets of its sauces and the mysteries of its famous dishes including pigeon. This desire brings him closer to Marguerite who wisely attempts to keep Hassan at arm’s length. Spreading close hold knowledge of fine French cooking is all well and good, but Hassan, if not necessarily the enemy, is certainly competition. Marguerite has ambition in Madame Mallory’s restaurant and common courtesy and professional respect may end at the kitchen threshold.
The look of the two restaurants facing off against one another directly across the street is effective. Production designer David Gropman, who created the memorable house from August: Osage County, could not find a ready-made setting of two large estates right across the street from one another so he constructed the front of one and paved a road between them. Later on, small village life is contrasted with the Parisian megalopolis. At first, Hallström shows us Paris as fresh, exciting, and full of possibility. After another food montage, Paris comes across as lonely, clinical, and a place for one lost fish to feel disappeared in an ocean.
The story of Indian fish out of water in rural France is new, the repetitive squabbling between culinary neighbors is similar to most culture shock films, and the ending feels unnecessarily drawn out and meandering. A tighter edit of the last half hour and a deeper appreciation of where the lead characters, from both continents, would make The Hundred-Foot Journey more than it is right now, a lesser addition to finer food films.
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