CP24’s film critic Richard Crouse as he shares his reviews for ‘Hundred-Foot Journey’, ‘Into the Storm’ and ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ with George Lagogianes.
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Canada AM’s film critic Richard Crouse as he shares his reviews for ‘Hundred-Foot Journey’, ‘Into the Storm’ and ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.’
Watch the whole thing HERE!
“The Hundred-Foot Journey” is a rich concoction that flavors its story with the sweetness of “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” and the sour competitiveness of “MasterChef.”
It’s a feel-good movie about an Indian family who moves to a town in France to open a restaurant. Across the street is a Michelin-starred French eatery run with an iron fist by Madame Mallory (Helen Mirren). Cultures and personalities clash, but soon Hassan Kadam’s (Manish Dayal) talent in the kitchen leads him on a journey. First he crosses the hundred feet between his father’s (Om Puri) restaurant to Madame Mallory’s kitchen, then to Paris and ultimately to his real passion.
The last time director Lasse Hallström went all Food Network on us the result was the 2000 bonbon “Chocolat,” a comic story with a bittersweet edge. He’s revisiting similar ground here, mixing gastroporn, good old-fashioned romance and cross-cultural farce.
The conflicts between restaurateurs Madame Mallory and Mister Kadam, and newbie chefs Hassan and Marguerite (Charlotte Le Bon), (SPOILER, BUT ONLY IF YOU HAVEN’T EVER SEEN A MOVIE BEFORE), are, of course, going to change from rivalry to romance, that much is obvious from the beginning, but the predictability of the story is tempered by very charming performances from the leads.
Mirren essentially plays two characters. As Madame comes to respect and then like her new neighbors, her ice queen demeanor slowly melts, allowing the actress to subtly reveal layers of character. There’s no neighborly epiphany that changes her mind—although a cowardly racist act sets things in motion. Instead, she rediscovers her various passions and each new revelation is registered on her face and in her body language.
Puri’s stubborn patriarch is mischievous and charming while Dayal and Le Bon (who lives up to her name) are solid romantic leads.
Despite its predictability, “The Hundred-Foot Journey’s” collection of characters keeps things lively and amusing and the food looks so good you’ll wish the movie was in Smell-O-Vision. It’s an enjoyable film about passion; the passion for food, passion for culture but most of all, passion for life.
By Richard Crouse & Mark Breslin – Metro Reel Guys
SYNOPSIS: Hundred-Foot Journey is a feel-good movie about an Indian family who moves to a small town in France to open a restaurant. Across the street is a Michelin-starred French eatery run with an iron fist by Madame Mallory (Helen Mirren). Cultures and personalities clash, but soon Hassan Kadam’s (Manish Dayal) talent in the kitchen leads him on a journey. First he crosses the hundred feet between his father’s (Om Puri) restaurant to Madame Mallory’s kitchen, then to Paris and ultimately to his real passion.
STAR RATINGS:
Richard: 3 Stars
Mark: 2 Stars
Richard: Mark, the last time director Lasse Hallström went all Food Network on us the result was the 2000 bonbon Chocolat, a comic story with a bittersweet edge. He’s revisiting similar ground here, mixing gastroporn, good old-fashioned romance and cross-cultural farce. Despite its predictability, The Hundred-Foot Journey’s collection of characters keeps things lively and amusing and the food looks so good you’ll wish the movie was in Smell-O-Vision. I thought it was an enjoyable film about passion; the passion for food, passion for culture but most of all, passion for life. What did you think?
Mark: Richard, I wouldn’t use the word passion to describe this movie. It was full of warmth, and it glowed from the sun-dappled shots of the French countryside to the sun-dappled shots of the delicious food to the sun-dappled shots of Helen Mirren’s profile contemplating Septuagenarian sex. But passion? If this movie about food were a food, it would be a nice custard, served at room temperature.
RC: Perhaps there wasn’t passion of the Gordon Ramsey style, but I thought the characters, particularly the young leads, brought enthusiasm not only to their romance but to their rivalry as well. As Marguerite Charlotte Le Bon moves beyond simply playing the romantic counterpart and puts herself and her dream of being a chef first. I liked that she was spunkier than you often see in a movie like this. Ditto Mirren. As Madame comes to respect and then like her new neighbors, her ice queen demeanor slowly melts, allowing the actress to subtly reveal layers of character.
MB: None of them impressed me Richard, not even Mirren. The one actor that did blow me away was the great Indian actor Om Puri, whose name even sounds like a fine dish, served with a side of raita. I didn’t find much that surprised me in the script either, although I wasn’t expecting the young Indian chef to cross the road and work at Mirren’s classical French restaurant . Whether or not you see him as a contemptible sell-out or not probably depends on your attitude towards fusion cuisine.
RC: Tone wise this movie reminded me of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. It may not be the most original movie to hit screens this summer, but I liked the characters and left the theatre hungry for more.
MB: I just left the theatre hungry. The vindaloo has the best part.
By Richard Crouse – Metro Canada
Charlotte Le Bon, the Paris-based, Quebec-born star of The Hundred-Foot Journey was in Toronto recently to do a round of interviews to promote the movie. “How’s the day going for you so far?” asked your intrepid reporter.
“Amazing! I’m so happy answering the same questions over and over again. Be creative,” she says with a laugh.
So the standard, “How is it working with Helen Mirren?” is off the table. Ditto questions about producers Oprah and Steven Spielberg, although later she offers up that the idea of working with those powerhouses was enticing.
“When somebody calls you to say Steven Spielberg thinks you’re the one, you don’t go, ‘I’m going to think about it, read the script a couple of times and maybe I’ll call him back.’ It’s super overwhelming and exciting.”
In the film, she plays Marguerite, sous-chef to chef Madame Mallory (Mirren) in Mallory’s Michelin-starred French restaurant. When an Indian family, and their prodigiously talented chef (Manish Dayal) opens a restaurant just 100 feet across the street, rivalry and romance blossom between the two young kitchen stars.
Have you ever worked in a restaurant?, I enquire. “You’re the first journalist to ask that!” she says. “Yay! I worked in a sushi restaurant as a busgirl, just setting the tables. I realized how difficult working in a restaurant is. You have to be some kind of actor to be a good waiter because you’re always doing small talk and usually you don’t care about the people in front of you, but you have to act like you mean it.
“It’s a very difficult job and when you’re a chef it is over-the-top difficult. That’s why you have to be a control freak or a dictator to have a good restaurant and win Michelin stars.”
The 27-year-old vegetarian says she spent time in an upscale restaurant in Paris, “to learn how to act like a chef,” but don’t expect to see the impressive cooking talent she displays in the movie in her own kitchen.
“I’m really lazy when it comes to food,” she says. “I have experience in food in the way that I really enjoy eating people’s food,” she says. “I have no skills whatsoever.”
She prefers eating out because, “you don’t have to do the dishes, you can choose whatever you want and you don’t have to go grocery shopping.”
