https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6H8pAKKkgQ
Sometimes critics make big mistakes, and that includes well known movie critics. I opened the NY Times this morning and read A.O. Scott’s rather snarky and highly critical review of the new movie that stars Helen Mirren, a movie about a culture clash and a competition between two very different restaurants in the south of France— one a Michelin starred French restaurant, the other a brand new Indian restaurant. After reading it, as the Bible says, my countenance fell. I said to myself ‘oh darn. I was looking forward to this movie.’ It had a lot of the elements that I like in a movie, a good cast, a beautiful location, a good plot with plenty of tension (if it’s anything like the novel it’s based on), a little romance, and good food— what’s not to like? Scott however basically trashed the film, and so I went to the cinema prepared to be disappointed— and came away HAPPY that even major film critics can be badly mistaken, and in this case he was!
In the first place, while food is a major focus of this film, it is not a food movie, like say Chocolat (by the same director as this film), or Ratatouille, or Babette’s Feast. It is actually a movie about culture clashes as epitomized in contrasting cuisines, one subtle and refined, the other bold and spicy. The culture clash is evident not merely in the food but in the apparel, the attitudes, the customs, the etiquette and of course the languages. The movie is based in fact on an international best seller, and Lasse Hallstrom has brought all of his aesthetic sensibilities to the film– it is beautiful to watch, the cinematography is grand. It’s too bad we don’t yet have smells with movies, or else the audience would have left this show very hungry indeed. The story within the story is about the rise to celebrity chef status of a young Indian man named Hasan, who can really cook, and oh yes he falls for a cute French girl who is also studying to be a chef.
Madame Mallory, is a mean ole spinster who runs the French restaurant, and is vengeful and spiteful, until something finally cracks her hard heart open like an egg. She is wonderfully played by Helen Mirren, who I would watch in almost any role. There is plenty of humor in this film, such as in the scene where the Indian family is at passport control in France and has to convince them to let them in, or in various the scenes involving the Indian father (wonderfully played by Om Puri, whom you may have seen before in a film or two). The two respective owners of these rival restaurants only 100 feet apart butt heads, and engage in their own personal food wars, until Hasan becomes a chef in the French restaurant itself and goes on to be a star chef in Paris.
If this movie has a fault, it may be that it is a little slow in pace, and so seems a little long, but like a good meal you don’t want to rush, it’s o.k. if it takes a little longer to get to the dessert course. It would be my hope that despite the review in the NY Times, this movie gets its just desserts. It’s not a classic, but it is a very enjoyable film, in a summer which has seen no comedy or romance films like this one. Kudos to Steven Spielberg and Oprah Winfrey for believing in this film and helping it come to life. Viva la difference!!!
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