The story of an Indian family in France that somehow ended up starring British actress Helen Mirren. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Our hero is a young man who learns to cook from his mother. His mother promptly dies in classic Disney fashion, and he is left in the hands of his tightwad father. They wander around until they happen upon an abandoned restaurant in a small French town. This restaurant is 100 yards from the region’s only Michelin starred restaurant. The boy, who grew up cooking classical Indian food, is a natural and soon becomes a master of fusion cuisine. Bring in the Standard Rich and Famous Contract.
The Hundred Foot Journey was a very good looking film, had great music, and a brilliant cast. It was a very well made film that moved from one slightly interesting moment to the next slightly interesting moment. I’m not sure what, exactly, I didn’t like about this film. Maybe the whole ‘and they all lived happily ever after’ thing has something to do with it. Or the hero’s meteoric rise to fame and fortune. Or the slightly unrealistic welcome of this loud and obnoxious Indian family into a quiet French village. Or maybe the fact that our young Indian cook becomes a French Chef by osmosis.
The Hundred Foot Journey is a film that wants to be taken seriously. The shots are like little works of art. The dishes we are shown are tiny masterpieces. And yet the hints of racism in the London cooking rags are glossed over and quickly forgotten. We can’t be given even a hint that our hero might have faced some challenge he couldn’t istantly overcome with his magical cooking.
To some extend all movie are like this. The hero does impossible things, that’s what makes him a hero, but maybe I just didn’t like the young cook and the immortal box of spices he uses to work his magic. And his father was a jerk.
The Hundred Foot Journey was a beautiful film,, but it wasn’t my kind of film.
