“The Hundred-Foot Journey” is a film that demands that you
take it seriously. With its feel-good themes of multicultural understanding, it
is about Something Important. It even comes with the stamp of approval from titanic
tastemakers Oprah Winfrey and Steven Spielberg, who both serve as producers.
What more convincing could you possibly need?
There’s something familiar about the treacly and
sanctimonious way this film is being packaged. It reeks of late-‘90s/early ‘00s
Miramax fare: films with tasteful yet ubiquitous ad campaigns and unabashed
Oscar aspirations which suggested that seeing them (and, more importantly,
voting for them) would make you a better person. Films like “The Cider House
Rules,” “Chocolat” and “The Shipping News.” Films by Swedish director Lasse
Hallstrom.
Hallstrom just happens to be the director here, as well, and
the similarities to “Chocolat” are inescapable. Stop me if think you’ve heard
this one before: A family moves into a quaint but closed-minded French village
and shakes things up with an enticing array of culinary delicacies. This new
enterprise happens to sit across the street from a conservative and revered
building that’s a town treasure. But the food in question isn’t a bon bon this
time—rather, the movie is the bon bon itself.
But despite being handsomely crafted, well acted and even
sufficiently enjoyable, “The Hundred-Foot Journey” is also conventional and
predictable. And for a film that’s all about opening up your senses and
sampling spicy, exotic tastes, this comic drama is entirely too safe and even a
little bland.
What livens things up, though, is the interplay between
Helen Mirren and Om Puri as battling restaurant owners operating across the street
from each other—100 feet away from each other, to be exact, a short but
fraught trip that various characters take for various reasons. Watching these
veteran actors stoop to sabotage each other provides a consistent source of
laughs. She’s all sharp angles, piercing looks and biting quips; he’s all round
joviality, boisterous blasts and warmhearted optimism. The contrast between
the British Oscar-winner and the Indian acting legend offers the only tension
in this otherwise soft and gooey dish—that is, until the film goes all soft
and gooey, too.
Mirren stars as Madame Mallory, owner of Le Saule Pleurer
(The Weeping Willow), an elegant and expensive French restaurant that’s the
winner of a prestigious Michelin star. But one star isn’t enough for the coldly
driven Mme. Mallory—she wants another, and then another.
But her bloodless quest for gourmet grandeur is interrupted
by the arrival across the street of an Indian family: the Kadams, who’ve been
wandering around Europe ever since their beloved restaurant back home burned
down during political rioting. When the brakes on their car malfunction on a
treacherous stretch of spectacular countryside, Papa (Puri) insists it’s a sign
from his late wife and decides to open a new eatery in the charming town at the
bottom of the hill.
Never mind that one of the most celebrated restaurants in
all of France is sitting right across the street from the empty building he
rents. Never mind that they are in an insular part of the country where the
residents probably don’t even know what Indian cuisine is, much less like it,
as his children point out. He has faith in his food—and in his son, Hassan
(Manish Dayal), a brilliant, young chef.
Just as Papa and Mme. Mallory strike up a sparky rivalry,
Hassan enjoys a flirtatious relationship with French sous chef Marguerite
(Charlotte Le Bon, who played an early model and muse in the recent “Yves Saint
Laurent” biopic). The script from Steven Wright (who also wrote the far
trickier “Locke” from earlier this year, as well as “Dirty Pretty Things” and
“Eastern Promises”) is full of such tidy parallels, as well as trite and overly
simplistic proclamations about how food inspires memories. Dayal and Le Bon do look lovely
together, though, and share a light, enjoyable chemistry.
Then
again, it all looks lovely—both the French and Indian
dishes as well as the lush, rolling surroundings, which we see through
all four
seasons; the work of cinematographer Linus Sandgren, who recently shot
“American
Hustle.” This sweetly pleasing combination of ingredients would have
been perfectly suitable if the film didn’t take a wild and needless
detour in the third act.
That’s when it becomes an even less interesting movie than it already
was, in spite of its loftier aspirations.
Source: http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-hundred-foot-journey-2014
