The Hundred-Foot Journey (Helen Mirren, Lasse Hallström)

[Holmes]

I searched, but could not find a thread for this film, so here one is.

My review -

In the past, Swedish director Lasse Hallström created a few films exploring the human condition in an astonishing and profound way. The coming-of-age drama My Life as a Dog is his masterpiece, and What's Eating Gilbert Grape is not far behind. In recent years, he has become a studio-film craftsman (or mercenary) specializing in a type of chic uplift. This style invites a cynical reaction, but I found it very hard to resist The Hundred-Foot Journey, a strongly acted and photographed romantic drama functioning as a sentimental ode to the sumptuous beauty of rural France and cuisines French and Indian. As far as latter-day Hallström goes, it is among the cream of the crop. The story turns on an itinerant family from Mumbai. Led by their boisterous and impulsive patriarch, now a widower, they open an Indian restaurant outside a hamlet in France. There is another restaurant, a luxurious French one with a coveted Michelin star, on the other side of the street, and its proud owner is not pleased by the exotic competition.

The beats of conflict (culinary and social) and reconciliation are largely predictable, yet there are so many distinct pleasures to savor. The way, for instance, the camera glides through the restaurants, capturing the excitement and showmanship implicit in the proper operation of such establishments, not to mention the aforementioned camera's vivid, borderline pornographic adoration of eggs and sauces and other delicious treats. There are a couple engaging lead performances on display, too. Helen Mirren and Om Puri, both seasoned pros, are well-cast as the respective restauranteurs: she is guarded and magisterial, he irascible and madcap. Their shared trajectory—from outright contempt to a guarded respect and onward—is bound to and driven by an old-fashioned formula, yet there is a spirited pop to their barbed interaction, and she nails her French accent. And the Montreal-born Charlotte Le Bon is an enchanting find as an ambitious sous-chef who becomes a central player in the storyline. On the whole, is this an authentic and hard-edged examination of race in contemporary Europe? Of course not. Is it, beneath the above-average acting and high-toned aesthetic, lightweight escapism relatively short on depth and almost entirely devoid of grit? Yes, sure. Damn it, though, it summertime, and I reserve the right to savor a bit of lightweight escapism, particularly when it is presented with such aplomb and finesse.

B