Review: The Hundred-Foot Journey

With Steven Spielberg and Oprah Winfrey as two of its producers, one can expect The Hundred-Foot Journey to be one of two things: a drama with big themes like Schindler's List or Beloved, or a crowdpleasing story with broad appeal like E.T.: The Extraterrestrial or television's Tuesdays With Morrie. The Hundred-Foot Journey, an adaptation of Richard C. Morais's novel, falls firmly in the latter category.

The film plunges the audience in the colourful sights and bustling sounds of a food market in Mumbai where young Hassan is shopping with his mother. His family owns a restaurant - it is there with his mother as mentor that Hassan learns to cook; more importantly, to taste the spirits that live on in every ingredient. An uprising brings death to his mother and destruction to their restaurant, forcing the family to flee to Europe for a chance at a better life.

Happenstance - and their car breaking down - lead the family to a town in the South of France where proud Papa (Om Puri) decides to open the Maison Mumbai with the now grown Hassan (Manish Dayal) as the head chef. Papa's decision seems a folly to all his children, who point out that a Michelin-starred restaurant is literally 100 feet across the road. The president of France dines there, they protest. Papa will not be deterred: "Is the President able to order tandoori goat cooked the way Hassan cooks?"

Thus the war begins with Papa and Madame Mallory (Helen Mirren), the icy and exacting owner of Le Saule Pleureur, doing their utmost to sabotage one another and even involving the comically unflappable mayor (Michel Blanc) in their shenanigans. Meanwhile Hassan embarks on a flirtation with Madame's sous chef Marguerite (Charlotte Le Bon), who introduces Hassan to the art of French cooking despite her teasing that he is the enemy. It's no surprise how events unfold and resolve themselves.

There is much to enjoy about The Hundred-Foot Journey - the mouthwatering displays of food lovingly photographed by Linus Sandgren, whose widescreen framing also offers storybook shots of the French countryside; the hauteur and vulnerability embodied by Mirren as she upholds the refinement of French cuisine; the always commanding Puri determined to promote the bold flavours of his native fare; the lovely Le Bon who anchors her part of the Marguerite-Hassan romance and rivalry with warmth and vitality.

On the other hand, the culture clash showing the earthiness of the Indians versus the snobbiness of the French is rote and any undertones of racial aggression are kept strictly on the backburner. Hassan's character remains a cipher - the ambiguity of his motivations and internal struggles in the third act of the film may have been explored in finer detail in the novel, but there's certainly none of that in Dayal's tepid characterisation.

The Hundred-Foot Journey

Directed by: Lasse Hallström

Written by: Steven Knight; adapted from the Richard C. Morais novel

Starring: Helen Mirren, Om Puri, Manish Dayal, Charlotte Le Bon, Michel Blanc, Amit Shah, Farzana Dua Elahe, Clément Sibony