The Hundred-Foot Journey

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Lasse Hallstrom/Starring: Helen Mirren, Om Puri, Manish Dayal and Charlotte Le Bon

I have to admit; when I first watched the trailer for Lasse Hallstrom's film, I winced like I just tasted an excruciatingly sweet slice of cake topped by treacle, powdered sugar and mashed gummy bear gravy. I thought geez, all the sweets in Willy Wonka's factory seem postively bitter next to producers Oprah Winfrey and Steven Spielberg's joint cinematic confection.

I could the understand the duo adapting author Richard C. Morais' novel, which might appeal to their occasional taste for fluff. It even made sense for them to hire the writer to co-adapt his novel. I could even understand the two producers recruiting Hallstrom, who is no stranger to light as a whisper cinema (Chocolat) but I was downright mystified by their choice to co-adapt the novel: Steven Knight. If that name faintly rings a bell, it's because said co-screenwriter is none other than the writer-director of the darkly offbeat Locke, which briefly flickered on movie screens sometime back in the spring. Whatever inspired an unlikely choice like Knight can probably be attributed to the smarts that have made Winfrey and Spielberg colossi in the entertainment world.

Believe me when I tell you, I came to the film bearing fangs and wielding sharp objects, expecting to slice and rend flesh. I expected to slash the film as a Great White tears surfers with its lethally-sharp rows of dental death. Not only did I expect to loathe the film, I wanted to detest and abominate it too.

But to my surprise, the film slowly disarmed me; overcoming me with its seductive and irresistible (and I don't use that word casually) charm. I was lulled into what felt like a sweet stupor, as if I had toked an opium pipe in the theater.

The story of a restaurant-owning, Indian family who are forced to flee their Mumbai home and their country for the politically safe environs of Europe seems more like the overture to something provocative and tragic. But as the tight-knit family wanders the European continent, a harrowing incident involving failed brakes leads them to a beautiful French village, one almost improbably so. By avoiding death by failed brakes, the family makes the acquaintance of a stunning, young woman named Marguerite (an almost impossibly lovely Charlotte Le Bon) who just happens to work as a sous chef in an exceptional village restaurant. The Indian father (a terrific Om Puri) is immediately taken by the idyllic surroundings, while his son Hassan (Manish Dayal) is taken by Marguerite's beauty.

Marguerite offers the family a place to stay for the night, which the itinerant family eagerly accepts. While resting from their travels, Marguerite offers them a plate of bread, cheeses and vegetables, all lovingly spread and all delicious.

While wandering through the village the next day, the father sees what looks like a house sitting directly across the street from a renowned French restaurant. Undaunted by the restaurant's presence, the father envisions setting up his own in the vacant property; a place much like the one the family lost when they were forced to flee their homeland. The family is skeptical about the father's plan but knowing Hassan is a superb cook, they go along with the idea.

The father's restaurant venture doesn't go unnoticed by Madame Mallory, the snobby owner of the restaurant across the street, who watches through her curtains as the family slowly transforms their newly acquired property into an Indian restaurant called Maisson Mumbai. She regards the restaurant and the food with something akin to contempt. While crossing the street one day to turn off the loud music, Madame Mallory crosses verbal sabers with the father, which leads to expressions of mutual disdain for their respective cuisines. As a romance between Marguerite and Hassan begins to flicker, the relationship creates a conflict of interest, as the young woman is on Madame Mallory's staff.

A viewer would have to have the intellect of one of the sea anemones Hassan enjoys to not know the story's course or to not know the character vectors. But a few unexpected suprises arise in the story, like Madame Mallory recognizing Hassan's superlative cooking talent and taking him under her wing. This development seems very improbable but to quibble over realism in a movie like The Hundred Foot Journey is like demanding scientific proof for Glenda the Good Witch's magic.
One can also see the obvious conflict that will arise when Marguerite's culinary aspirations are suddenly thwarted by the appointment of Hassan to the head chef position on Madame's staff.

As the father works to establish his restaurant's viability, Madame Mallory's dream of earning stars for her restaurant in the prestigious Michelin guide dovetails with her desire to hire Hassan as her head chef--a move vigorously opposed by the father.

As all these dramas play out to a predictable end, Hallstrom gives us something intoxicating to behold. Linus Sandgren, the director of photography on American Hustle, paints the French countryside with a colorful radiance, both blissful and edenic. I also don't know that I've seen Paris captured so rapturously since the water-skiing-on-the-Seine scene in Leo Carax's Lovers on the Bridge.

I can rhapsodize as much for the performances. No matter how often one marvels at Helen Mirren's acting, she continues to enchant and beguile. As does Om Puri, whose presence provides the perfect counterweight to Mirren. Much of the film's charms can be credited to these two fine actors. Manish Dayal and Charlotte Le Bon are the pleasing eye-candy who generate some romantic heat.

The Hundred-Foot Journey is the fourth film I've seen this year with a strong food theme. In The Lunchbox, food is a kind of a galvanizing agent; in Chef; a means to repair a relationship; in Le Chef a way out of obscurity and the commonplace and in Hallstrom's film; it is a a culinary treaty between cultures. Nothing profound but for this frothiness, it works.

I was somewhat annoyed by the film's tacit view that French cuisine is superior to that of India's. I'm sure the curries and spices in Indian food predate France's existence by more than a millenium, so why the condescension? Does it not take as much passion to make a great curry as a great sauce? Maybe most food critics and foodies would find my rhetorical questions naive.

Is The Hundred-Foot Journey a great film? Hardly. Is it an artistic success? Don't think so. Well, what is it? It's fun, it's heady and it's charming. It's all a fairy-tale, to be sure, with only a tenuous, connective thread to the real world, but I found it futile to resist. If anyone claims the film is something more, tell them they're full of cheese. And if they ask what kind, tell them the French have 629 varieties from which to choose, so take your pick. For me, the film was a good cheddar, because like the French, I too enjoy a little cheese.