‘The Hundred-Foot Journey’ Review

The Hundred-Foot Journey

From the parent company that brought you Ratatouille, the film that taught us that “anyone can cook,” comes a film about an unlikely chef who sets French cuisine on fire. I knew very little about The Hundred-Foot Journey prior to seeing it and my interest was solely based on Helen Mirren. Touchstone Pictures distributes this coproduction from Dreamworks Pictures, Amblin Entertainment, Harpo Films, Imagenation Abu Dhabi FZ, Participant Media, and Reliance Media.

Reading through that list, you may have put two-and-two together and realized that Steven Spielberg is in charge of Amblin Entertainment and Dreamworks Pictures. That’s right, the man that brought you JawsJurassic Park, and Who Framed Roger Rabbit is behind this film. You may also have noticed that in the same way Yensid is Disney spelled backwards, Harpo is Oprah spelled backwards. That’s right, you’re all getting a FREE CAAAaaaaAAAaaaaaAAAAAaaaar!!!!… Sorry, my inner-Oprah burst out (and laughingplace.com doesn’t have the budget to give anybody a free car), but Oprah really did coproduce this film (Bonus reversed name to make you snort: Nazrat… Tarzan).

Despite having top billing and being the central figure on the poster, Helen Mirren doesn’t play the main character. Hasam Kadam (Manish Dayal) loves cooking. His mom taught him how to prepare meals from the heart in their village restaurant in India. When his mom is killed during a political uprising, his dad (Om Puri) packs the family in a van and drives them around Europe in search of a new home. When their van breaks down in a small French town, they decide to stay there and open a new restaurant. The only problem is that it is 100 feet away from a well established restaurant with a Michelin Star (similar to a AAA Diamond). The owner of that restaurant (Helen Mirren) goes to great lengths to stomp out the competition, but when Hasam begins to fuse his Indian heritage with classic French cuisine, the competition really heats up.

One of the film’s greatest strengths are the locations. There is a stark contrast between the Kadam’s Indian village and their new French home. The French village is so inviting that it makes me want to take a trip there, or at least go back to the French Pavilion at Epcot. Similar to Ratatouille and Julie & Julia, prepare to leave the theater starving. I ate dinner right before the movie and had amassed so much drool while watching all of the food in the film that, had the theater offered a Food & Wine Festival-esque cart, I would have gladly overpaid for a smackerel.

The acting performances are all magnifique. Helen Mirren easily steals the show in a role that would be unlikable in less capable hands. She’s not on screen enough in this film, but all of her scenes are delightful. She and Om Puri have a really unique chemistry in this film that you don’t see very often and I loved both of them. Manish Daval is incredibly likable and easily carries the story as the central character. There’s something about his eyes that make his performance so believable. He has a certain je ne sais quoi.

The Hundred-Foot Journey is a delightful film about a lost boy finding himself again through French cuisine. It’s slow-paced, but it never felt slow even with a two-hour runtime. It’s a beautiful film and I fell in love with it by the end. If you liked Ratatouille and want to see an updated version of the story told with an all-human cast, I recommend this film to you.

I give The Hundred-Foot Journey 4.5 out of 5 Michelin Stars.

Alex Reif
Alex joined the Laughing Place team in 2014 and has been a lifelong Disney fan. His main beats for LP are Disney-branded movies, TV shows, books, music and toys. He recently became a member of the Television Critics Association (TCA).