THE HUNDRED-FOOT JOURNEY (Lasse Hallström 2014)

[Chris Knipp]

Lasse Hallström: The Hundred-Foot Journey (2014)


Om Puri, Manash Dayal, Helen Mirren in The Hundred-Foot Journey

Mastering the art of Franco-Indian cooking

The Hundred-Food Journey, directed with typical glossiness by Lasse Hallström, with Opra Winfrey and Steven Spielberg co-producing it, is yet another food-genre film. This time the topic is fusion cuisine. A family of Indian restaurateurs, widowed pater familias played by the great Om Puri, plants itself right across the street from a posh one-star Michelin French restaurant outside the beautiful Hautes-Pyrénées town of Saint-Antonin-Noble-Val. Like the restaurant in the French-language Jean Reno vehicle Le Chef (Comme un chef), Saint Antonin's Le Saule Pleureur (the Weeping Willow)-- run by Helen Mirren putting on a French accent -- has a facade that looks like the Élysée Palace -- just as all the food and all the ingredients look voluptuous and perfect, and the cooks have a marvelously precise sense of taste and memory of flavors, these being more important than the nitty-gritty of food preparation. But these are amiable weaknesses of all food-porn movies, whose fans can't quarrel with their fanciful assumptions, so long as the food looks delicious and the action draws tears and laughter. This time, the soup first stirred has a basic warring mix, subtle vs. spicy, elegant vs. boisterous. Their hundred-foot proximity means that Maison Mumai and Saule Pleureur are going to engage in a battle of the cuisines. But they will wind up friends and collaborators in the end.

None of Hallström's action is "realistic," starting with the fact that everybody speaks English, or at least understands it. Reviewers have been falling over each other to tell us this film is an overlong and clichéed serving of cinematic comfort food. And that is perhaps basically true. Only, comfort food can be very good food, and well prepared. Hallström is a skilled director. The Hundred-Foot Journey doesn't feel all that overlong or clichéd when you're succumbing to his dp Linus Sandgren's lovely, light-drenched widescreen 35 mm. images, or A.R. Rahman's buoyant music, or the thespian command of Puri and Mirren, or the charm and good looks of the Franco-Indian romantic-culinary couple represented by sous chef Marguerite (Charlotte Le Bon) and budding global restaurant star Hassan Kadam (Manish Dayal). It impressed me that there were kids on hand in the audience when I saw this film who took delight in much of the action. Maybe scenes critics insist on calling hackneyed are merely the kind of scenes that please all ages. And maybe food really is an awful lot of fun: this explains the recent spate of food movies.

True, though, Hallström, and unexpected adaptor Stephen Knight (of Locke) of a novel by Richard C. Morais, may take a bit longer than necessary explaining how a local conflict in India caused the Kadams, whose family have run restaurants for generations, to lose their busy Mumbai place; try their luck at a spot in England too near Heathrow Airport; and then head on to try their fortune in Europe. Even the family's pause at customs takes up unnecessary screen time. There also may be a few too many subplots of squabbles involving the market and the mayor. But it's reassuring and pleasant to find that mayor -- amusingly depicted as something of a foodie himself, and clear about the dangers of mistreating foreign residents -- being amiably played by Michel Blanc, one of the most famous and popular actors in French film.

Part of what's new here is that for once, while Michelin star ratings are absolutely crucial to the action for both Madame Mallory and Hassan Kadam, the sneaky, judgmental devils who mete out these rare, Olympian awards get no screen time. "I think they're called 'critics,'" Hassan tells a younger brother, and that's as close as we actually get to them. When Marguerite does her partly withholding flirting with Hassan, whose quick mastery of the five "grandes sauces" of French cuisine makes her bow to him as the greater talent, it's clear what's going to happen. Hassan has Madame Mallory prepare an omelette to his recipe (his hands are bandaged from a fire at Maison Mumbai set by French xenophobes) and one taste tells her he's "got it." She hires him on. Hiring him for a dish that she has actually prepared is a somewhat odd conceit; but remember, this is a fantasy. Anyway, bœuf bourguignon henceforth is gong to get a dash of cardamom in Madame Mallory's restaurant: she has fired her French male chef de cuisine (Clément Sibony) for racism. And here the plot, which has dragged, moves too fast. Look away for a minute and Hassan has zipped to the chef spot at the Saule Pleureur. Rearrange your popcorn and and he has won the restaurant a second Michelin star and the formerly selfish widow has magnanimously released him to the wide world.

Or, in this case, to a fancy molecular-style eatery in Paris whose staff all wear dark brown instead of white. (The effect of this fashion choice is cool, but a bit grim. "He looks like a damn terrorist!" exclaims his father when he sees a photo in a food magazine.) The plates prepared at this restaurant, which has spectacular views of Paris, suggest those laid out at Michael and Sebastian Bras' restaurant in Laguiole, depicted in Paul Lacoste's restaurant documentary <a href="http://www.chrisknipp.com/writing/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2082"> Step Up to the Plate</a>, though Bras' place is in a remote country location nowhere near Paris.

It's interesting though, that Hassan as played by Manish Dayal, who has a sweet, sensitive face, skips right off to one of the biggest, most famous, and hippest restaurants in Paris, whose motto is "innovation, innovation, innovation." I liked the film's getting away from the Hallmark-card comfiness of rural France for this segment. But what felt wrong was the implication that Michelin stars must catapult a young chef to Paris, because Michelin spreads its stars far and wide. Here, as in Le Chef, molecular gastronomy (as notably espoused by Ferran Adrià at El Bulli) is seen (not too surprisingly) as non-sensual and alienating, and within a year Hassan gets fed up with his superstar role in Paris, and (spoiler alert) returns to Marguerite, Madame Mallory (now dancing in the dark with Hassan's dad) and his family, promising to achieve a third Michelin star at a fusion of Maison Mumbai and Saule Pleureur. The over-extended and the over-speedy and the far-fetched elements may have begun to catch up with us by now, leading to that old Chinese-food joke, you'll be hungry again in a couple of hours. But The Hundred-Foot Journey nonetheless is suffused with sweetness. This is not a great movie, but it is an enjoyable one. As Claude Dauphin once said of an American's fantasy of reading Madame Bovary in the shadow of Notre Dame while eating a croissant, it's "a wise and pleasant dream."

The Hundred-Foot Journey, 122 mins., debuted in the USA and other countries 7 and 8 August and thereafter and its release will continue in various locations into early November 2014. Metacritic rating 55%. We'll see what they think of it in France (release there 10 Sept.), where its title will be Les Recettes du bonheur.