“The Hundred-Foot Journey” (2014) opens with a shot of a young Indian boy tasting a black sea urchin. While his eyes don’t actually roll up in the back of his head, his expression lets us know that time has stopped for him, and his world-class senses are talking to ... ghosts? “You cook to make ghosts,” his mother tells him. Nothing brings back memories and ghosts like food.
From Frying Pan to Fire
The Kadam family is leaving Mumbai; it’s getting too hot over there politically. Off they go to Europe. England first, but unfortunately they live right under the unabated howling of a Heathrow airport flight path. After one too many shrieking jets, off they go again to France to open an Indian restaurant. Their son Hassan is that young, ecstatic urchin-taster, all grown up and ready to be the family chef.
Despite some trouble at the border (“Why are you leaving England?” “I found the vegetables had no soul.”) they find a quaint southern French village and decide to put down roots. And herbs and spices. The village already has a restaurant, but unfortunately it’s a doozie; it’s a Michelin-starred, upper-class-catering establishment, Le Saule Pleureur, overseen by an icy widow named Madame Mallory (Helen Mirren).
Immediately, the competition revs up. Madame strolls over, ostensibly to say hello, takes a snooty look at their (in her opinion) loud, over-spiced menu, and departs. How come when the Kadam’s head to market to stock up for their restaurant’s opening night—all their key ingredients are sold out? Hmm? Why would that be?
Opening night threatens to be disastrous: “Papa, you can’t stand by the gate like in India and drag people inside!” His Western suit failing to make the proper impression, Papa (the hilarious Om Puri) hastens inside and returns wearing his turban and golden kameez. He tells his eldest son, “Smile, son! You have good teeth!”
Cooking and Courtship
Meanwhile, younger son Hassan (Manish Dayal) is meeting Madame Mallory’s Marguerite (Charlotte Le Bon), the very pretty sous chef from 100 feet across the way. It’s slightly Romeo and Juliette. They go fishing; he learns the five basic French sauces from a book she loans him. She thinks his skills are incroyable (incredible). But she puts the brakes on the romance because, well, chefs have zero life, and two chefs would have even less life. Anyway, it’s apparent to the audience that in this case, two zeros would equal quite a cute couple.
Soon, the food wars escalate to firebombs, a charred Indian restaurant, and Hassan’s burned hands. Seeing the hate-graffiti spray-painted on the enemy’s stone wall, Madame is stricken with guilt and goes to personally scrub it off. The thawing begins. What follows (for Hassan) is the classic Hero’s Journey of going away and coming back again, but to say anything more would spoil the soup.
It’s all completely predictable, but so’s “Winnie the Pooh.” It’s human nature to know the story and want to hear it anyway. Granted, we no longer say, “Dad, read me the one about the wolf and Little Red Riding Hood” for the 400th time.
What can you say about a film like this? Cinematography? How wrong can you go with sumptuous shots of colorful food, er, tastefully arranged? How wrong can you go, shooting in the south of France? Or shooting Helen Mirren? The woman can turn 105 and she'll still be alluring, even when she’s being haughty.
The youthful chef/lovers are good-looking and act well. Indian veteran Om Puri is very, very funny, and ever since Apu appeared on “The Simpsons,” the comedic potential of the Indian accent has come to be highly appreciated by Western ears. The same goes for Scottish and Jamaican accents, for Americans; we just like them. We like food too. And good storytelling. It’s the spice of life when storytellers as adept as Lasse Hallstrom (director), Mirren, and Puri tell the story.
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