Official Synopsis
Hassan Kadam (Manish Dayal) is a culinary ingénue with the gastronomic equivalent of perfect pitch. Displaced from their native India, the Kadam family, led by Papa (Om Puri), settles in the quaint village of Saint-Antonin-Noble-Val in the south of France. Filled with charm, it is both picturesque and elegant – the ideal place to settle down and open an Indian restaurant, the Maison Mumbai. That is, until the chilly chef proprietress of Le Saule Pleureur, a Michelin starred, classical French restaurant run by Madame Mallory (Helen Mirren), gets wind of it. Her icy protests against the new Indian restaurant a hundred feet from her own escalate to all out war between the two establishments – until Hassan’s passion for French haute cuisine and for Mme. Mallory’s enchanting sous chef, Marguerite (Charlotte Le Bon), combine with his mysteriously delicious talent to weave magic between their two cultures and imbue Saint-Antonin with the flavors of life that even Mme. Mallory cannot ignore. At first Mme. Mallory’s culinary rival, she eventually recognizes Hassan’s gift as a chef and takes him under her wing.
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The Hundred-Foot Journey starts off on the right foot (no pun intended). Our main character Hassan (Manish Dayal) guides us through how his family came to be fantastic cooks and how their journey has led them to France. It’s fantastic introduction to not only Hassan’s family, but also their speciality in cooking and how sacred it is to them. All of this within a 10-minute time span.
The film gets going when Hassan’s family decides to set up a new restaurant across from a fancy French restaurant owned and operated by a woman named Madame Mallory (Helen Mirren). She is a widow that is cutthroat when it comes to food and when it comes to protecting her business. More importantly, Mallory’s attitude towards Indian food is less than stellar.
Mallory’s hatred for Indian food aside, somewhere in the middle of the story Hassan falls for one of Mallory’s cooks named Marguerite (Charlotte Le Bon). Hassan and Marguerite learn from each other and start a relationship that goes against their cultures (or at least what their own sheltered families have instilled in them). The onscreen chemistry between the two characters is believable and lovely, but the relationship is important because of the symbolism.
The heavy amount of blatant racism that is present within the story is nothing short of fascinating and helps to actually build the love between Hassan and Marguerite, though their relationship isn’t the central theme of the movie. Anyway, the film shows two completely different cultures that are clashing and neither giving way for the other because they don’t respect different points of view. The movie doesn’t specifically say that Mallory is to blame for this nor does it blame the Indian culture; it’s an equal amount of cultural stupidity to go around.
I like that a lot about the film because it doesn’t hold back and it doesn’t pull punches. While the central stupidity around the racism is blunt, how the filmmakers work through that to get these two sides together is pretty smooth. It does help that the relationship between Hassan and Marguerite has that kind of the Romeo/Juliet vibe to it. While not as harsh as the Shakespearean classic, their relationship is an echo that proves that both cultures can love each other and work together. It’s a bit blunt in its message, but nonetheless pleasant.
Now, as you would expect from a film like this, Mallory softens up like butter sitting out on a hot summer day to Hassan, who does his best to win her over and open up her mind with his food. Fighting it all the way, Mallory’s head chef ends up taking matters into his own hands and tries to burn down Hassan’s family restaurant, but sadly ends up burning Hassan — nearly crippling his ability to cook.
At this point, which is the pinnacle of the film, the movie shifts gears and Mallory finally opens up her mind to the idea that maybe Hassan has some real talent and can do great things for her restaurant and himself. Things go well, the restaurant earns a star rating because of Hassan’s food and his career takes off, though I’ve wondered how Hassan’s family survived with all the success going into Mallory’s place.
As the film is moving towards its conclusion, which ends up being fun and makes sense within the plot points — I won’t tell you what happens, it tends to hurry things along a bit. There is some really shallow details as it spirals towards its climax that don’t make the finish at all strong. I was expecting something a bit grander, something that made you walk away from the film saying, “Wow, this all ended on a high note”, but what ends up happening is just everything seems to come to a stop without much drama. Does it work? A little bit, but having that defining moment where everyone truly wins never fully comes to fruition. In a way, it seems like they were just trying to find a way to wrap things up and this is the best they could come up with.
Anyway, don’t let the ending keep you from checking this movie out. It’s a subtle story with pleasant characters that, if anything, will make you want to eat French and Indian food as soon as humanly possible.
The Hundred-Foot Journey is a good journey. Definitely one worth taking.
As for the Blu-ray portion of this film, it’s quite nice and works well with the main content of the movie. The colorful dishes that are served in the film have incredible color depth to them that stand out beautifully on the Blu-ray format. I’m especially impressed with how the yellow, red and green colors stand out on this transfer. All three colors pretty much dominate the picture from beginning to end and it works well. There isn’t much graininess and not any compression issues with this transfer. It’s pretty solid visually and that bodes well for it on the Blu-ray format.
On the special features side of things, here’s what you should expect:
– The Hundred-Foot Journey (with Spielberg and Winfrey)
– The Recipe, The Ingredients The Journey
– On Set with Oprah Winfrey
– Coconut Chicken
The most interesting features on this list are ‘The Recipe, The Ingredients, The Journey’ and the ‘Coconut Chicken’. The first is a featurette that pretty much goes through small bits of how the production was put together. You get actor/crew interviews, as well as some behind-the-scenes with how the set was put together and how the music was put together. It’s nothing incredibly too in-depth, but it’s a pleasant journey through the production process.
The ‘Coconut Chicken’ featurette goes through how to cook Coconut Chicken (beginning to end). It will make you hungry and probably make you want to visit an Indian restaurant for lunch. I think I might have to do that after this review is wrapped.
As for the other features, they’re insights from Oprah Winfrey and Steven Spielberg, but nothing remotely interesting as the other features. Overall, this is the right amount of features for a movie like this.