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Motion Picture Reviews by Thomas Ormsby

The Hundred Foot Journey


If you are considering seeing The Hundred Foot Journey, allow me to set the table and present you with the menu. The main course will be Helen Mirren, a class act, as Madame Mallory, the uncompromising owner of a Michelin one star restaurant perched on a hill above an isolated French village. She is served with a pinch of haughtiness and a dash of grace, all factors in collusion to obtain that elusive second Michelin star. Here, Mirren is as convincingly French as she was portraying a Russian spacecraft commander in 2010, with the added bonus of having her costume designer, Pierre-Yves Gayraud, dress her to understated perfection for this role.

To this, we carefully fold in a flavorful family of cooks from India who purchase an abandoned restaurant across the road--one hundred feet away. They bring with them a trove of sub-continental spices which have long been neglected in traditional French haute cuisine. Thus begins an international food fight, and a cross-cultural love affair. Om Puri plays Papa, fresh from India, now in France, but still the controlling patriarch, who becomes the perfect humorous counterpoint to Mirren's withering demeanor. To this, we add a few drops of bitters in the form of the ill-tempered Jean-Pierre, played by Clément Sibony, whose nocturnal flambé turns out to be the spark that ignites a change of heart in the normally tough-as-snails Madame Mallory.

For dessert, we place before you the creamy beauty of Charlotte Le Bon as Marguerite and the smooth mocha handsomeness of Manish Dayal as Hassan, two sumptuous young newcomers to the screen, the sight of whose eyes alone are totally worth the price of admission.

Anyone who enjoyed The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel should certainly appreciate the lightheartedness and character interaction of The Hundred Foot Journey, in which food is most certainly a member of the caste (sub continent humor). Truly, not since Babette's Feast, have I seen a motion picture so satisfying, both to the eye and the palette, where food is the catalyst that brings about complete reconcilation between neighbors, once so at odds with each other.

Of course, any memorable dining experience would offer suitable background music. Enter A.R. Rahman, best known to most for his wondrous fusion of East and West, such as we heard in the scores for Slumdog Millionaire and 127 Hours.

At the conclusion of any great meal comes the tip, so here it is. Please be informed that this movie is not only romantically fulfilling and scenically lavish -- it is also a total culinary delight.

--Thomas Ormsby

See also my reviews of Boyhood, A Most Wanted Man and my gallery of six new original works of digital arts.