BackFilm Review | The Hundred-Foot Journey
A gastro-romcom
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The first faces on screen at a recent advance showing of The Hundred-Foot Journey belonged to Oprah Winfrey and Steven Spielberg, who do not appear in the movie itself but are credited among its producers. It’s a bit unusual to be subjected to a promo trying to sell you a movie you have already committed to seeing, but Spielberg and Winfrey clearly could not contain themselves.
In the clip Winfrey, using her trademark falsetto sing-song, tells us how excited she is to present this amazing movie, while Spielberg uses variations on the word “incredible" at least three times. Noting that The Hundred-Foot Journey, based on a popular novel by Richard C. Morais, is about food, Winfrey asks, “Can I say it’s delicious?"
Who could stop her? But, on the other hand: Who would believe her? There is a lot of soft-core culinary montage in the movie, directed by Lasse Hallström with the easy-going blend of elegance and vulgarity that has been his signature at least since Chocolat. Eggs are cracked in slow motion and whisked to the sounds of A.R. Rahman’s transnational airport music score. Tomatoes fairly burst in the golden sunlight of southern France. Words like “garam masala", and “écrevisses" are uttered with almost erotic intensity. And yet The Hundred-Foot Journey is likely neither to pique your appetite nor to sate it, leaving you in a dyspeptic limbo, stuffed with false sentiment and forced whimsy.
Well, maybe not entirely. Helen Mirren and Om Puri are the top-billed players here, and time spent watching them is never entirely wasted. Puri is Papa Kadam, the patriarch of an Indian family that has been in the restaurant business for generations. He and his four children arrive in a small town in the south of France and set up Maison Mumbai, where the smell of their spices and the sound of their music offend the sensibilities of Madame Mallory (Mirren), proprietress of the venerable Michelin-starred establishment across the street. The clash of imperious and irascible that these two well-seasoned actors perform is spirited and effortless, but there is nowhere near enough of it.
Instead, there is a culture clash gastro-romcom spooned out with extreme caution. The main character is Kadam’s son Hassan (Manish Dayal), a gifted and handsome cook, who supplies early voice-over narration and later exchanges smouldering glances and stolen kisses with Marguerite (Charlotte Le Bon), a sous chef in Madame Mallory’s restaurant.
All of which would be fine, even captivating, if The Hundred-Foot Journey were really interested in food, culture, ambition, family or any of the other themes it reduces to slogans and clichés. But it is so systematically wrong about all of these things as to seem actively dishonest. Hassan and his family flee Mumbai in the wake of political violence described as following from “some election or other". French xenophobia receives similarly cursory treatment. There are some racist hooligans in the village, and one in Madame Mallory’s kitchen, which is plausible enough.
Madame’s culinary chauvinism, in contrast, seems as dated and stereotypical as the frog’s legs and escargots on her menu, and the film’s assumptions about gender and cooking. Women here can nurture and spot talented chefs, but that status is implicitly reserved for men. The French are fussy and snobbish, the Indians clannish and boisterous, and the movie is in such a hurry to avoid real conflict that it also avoids suspense, drama and emotional impact.
A.O. Scott
©2014/The New York Times
The Hundred-Foot Journey released in theatres on Friday.
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