Cinematic Comfort Food – that fails at being your mother’s mashed potatoes – the Hundred-Foot Journey takes us on a cultural and global connection of life around the table. From producers Steven Spielberg and Oprah Winfrey and directed by sticky sweet Lasse Hallstrom, he might be returning to his Chocolat roots, but this over-baked mess plays out more like his slightly disastrous Salmon Fishing in the Yemen.
Based on the brilliant Richard C. Morais novel of 2010, Hallstrom tells the story of restaurant rivals, Madame Mallory (Helen Mirren) and Papa (Om Puri) in a sleepy French village. The tale is told through Hassan (Manish Dayal) a little boy from Mumbai born in 1990, where his school was his family’s restaurant, and his mother was the instructor, because “life has its own flavor.”
When the family loses everything, they move to London where Hassan attempts to finish his education, but instead have an Under the Tuscan Sun epiphany when their car breaks down in France and they happen upon an abandoned mansion/chateau. Deciding to set up their Tandori-esque feasts directly across from a (one star) Michelin celebrated French fine-dining establishment of Madame Mallory, this clash of cultures does what Chocolat did in making ‘change’ barely as tolerable as this film. Saturated in a loud cartoonish soundtrack – and doing that thing Hallstrom did in Chocolat – he inorganically force-feeds us cuteness and annoyance, with a side dish of horrible pacing.
This is no Julie & Julia, the charming Nora Ephron film on Julia Child, but instead a story that doesn’t simmer down until about 2/3 of the way through, when, in a silent moment, young Hassan makes an omelet for Madame. As the chef soars in the long third act, one might think that it’s too bad a chef this good has to be in a movie this bad.
Undoubtedly this will cater to art houses and fans of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, but while it tries to tap into the fame of Slumdog Millionaire’s success, even with a soundtrack by A. R. Rahman, in the end the ingredients just don’t add up. Read the book instead. ♚ ♛