The Hundred-Foot Journey

Good movie!

Good movie!

Good movie!

Good movie!

source: The Hundred-Foot Journey

Meant to excite your gastronomic and cultural senses, this movie instead is as bland as rice pudding. Not a surprise in the movie. Not a hint of character development. (The softening of tensions between main characters felt completely scripted and driven by the moviemaker, not by anything we saw in any of the characters). Too many incongruous or unbelievable details drive the thin plot: the secret to culinary brilliance is Indian spice -- add it to everything and get another star; the family is nearly impoverished in London, but draws on unseen wealth once they relocate to France; injuries heal overnight. Even the scenery, which is beautiful, is filmed in a way that diminishes it to dollhouse scale and lighting. Pleasant enough if you must watch something, but the whole time I was waiting for it to end.

I had not planned to watch this movie. It was just out of pure boredom that I opened my local newspaper to check for the list of movie shows in the next hour and decided to go for it. There was a show of The Hundred- Foot Journey and am I glad that I went to watch it. The director was able to successfully depict the initial struggle of an Indian family, that has moved to France, after losing their matriarch to the fires of the local riots; their belligerent yet funny competition and subsequent truce with the owner of a local and famous restaurant right opposite theirs; and finally nurturing the talent of the Indian boy who had a gift of cooking by the very same French lady and his rise to stardom . The film also has a touching moment that all the people staying away from their loved ones must have felt in their lives. Actor Manish Dayal did a splendid role in that scene and gave a good performance,overall. The trio of Om Puri, Helen Mirren and Charlotte Le Bon did a splendid job and kept me laughing(Puri and Mirren to be specific) and intrigued the whole time. Not a moment of boredom. Charlote Le Bon is not only an ocean of talent, but, is insanely gorgeous. Looking forward to seeing her in more movies.

I am a big fan of food movies irrespective of the language. I did not read the novel and so I can't comment on that but basically, the story of this movie is not good or in the other words, no proper story at all. Technically speaking(being a film school student), there is no proper conflict at all in the first place nor we can understand the exact protagonist at all. Since there is no protagonist or his goal, we would not know what the climax might be and so it is dragging a lot in the second half. Performances by Om puri and Mirren are the only saving graces. You can watch it for some time pass if you are also food lover like me o fans of the actors.

If you love food than this movie is one for you to watch. It is a fun movie for the whole family to enjoy. It is a movie that is fun for kids. If you like to go to the movies than go see this movie. It is not grown up at all so if you parents are thinking it maybe to grown up for your kids it is not grown up at all just sad. I was hungry the whole way through this movie because you know it was about food so of coarse it would make some people hungry. It was my favorite movie of the year so far. It was hard to watch at some points. If you love the food network then go see this movie now. For family friendly i give it a 4 and a half out of 5 stars. The movie is a heartwarming movie that makes you say can we please go see it again it was that good. I hope this review helped you and your family and i hope you go see this movie.

The Hundred-Foot Journey is based on the novel by Richard C. Morais. It tells the story of the combative relationship between an Indian family, headed by 'Papa' (Om Puri), who opens a traditional Indian restaurant called "La Maison Mumbai" in a rural French village directly opposite the Michelin 1-star restaurant run by the fanatically focused Madame Mallory. Given the proximity of the two establishments - and ignoring the fact that the "100 feet" should be "30.42 metres" - conflict on both a commercial, class and racial basis is inevitable. Against the odds (the French, after all, are not famous for liking curries) the new business is successful thanks largely to the culinary talents of Papa's prodigal son Hassan (Manish Dayal). Love interest for Hassan appears in the form of Marguerite (the charming Charlotte Le Bon); one of Madame Mallory's sous chefs. Will the Indian restaurant survive? Will the icy Madame Mallory thaw? Will Hassan and the recently widowed 'Papa' find love and happiness? Will Madame Mallory gain the long sought after second Michelin star? This is a perfectly pleasant film, which will probably be loved by older cinema-goers whose complaint is "they don't make them like that anymore". Well they do, and this is it. And there's nothing wrong with that. If you enjoyed "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel", then I predict that you will also enjoy this film. A gentle tale, gently told, with co-producers including Steven Spielberg and Oprah Winfrey. Most of the acting is good, with Puri and Mirran both playing off against each other well. Puri has a long and distinguished career in Indian cinema dating back to the mid-70's, but has had a few parts in western films including "Charlie Wilson's War" and "West is West". Mirran plays haughty and aloof very well. The music score from A.H. Rahman is atmospheric and fitting and a particular strength of the film is the cinematography of the French countryside by Linus Sandgren ("American Hustle") which is lush and seductive. But I have two main criticisms of the picture. Firstly, the screenplay by Steven Knight is so linear you could make a spirit level from it. I haven't read the novel to see if this is true to the book, but - aside from a traumatic event in the opening minutes - there is nothing surprising to be found in the story. This is not meant to be a spoiler, but everything you expect to happen… does! Secondly, and a much more irritating failure, is in the use of language in the film. The majority of the speech is in English throughout, with Helen Mirran - who I understand speaks pretty good French - adopting a Franglaise accent. I heard an interview with her recently where she confessed to wanting to speak the film in French and use subtitles, but this was rejected by the studios on the grounds that 'Americans don't like sub-titled films'. (If true, this seems highly disparaging towards the intelligence of the sort of US filmgoers that would go to see this type of film). In my opinion if all the french scenes had been in french and the Hindi scenes in Hindi, with a common language of English used for the cross-culture communications, the film would have been so much more convincing. As it was, the conflict generated one of the most ridiculous lines of dialogue in a 2014 film so far: Madame Mallory chastising her head chef for reciting the words of 'La Marseillaise' in french in front of her 100% french employees - "Now again, in English, so we can all understand"! Directed by Lasse Hallström ("Chocolat", "Salmon Fishing in the Yemen") this is a pleasant, un-challenging and stress-relieving way to spend two hours in the cinema. However, make sure you go in well fed else you will get very very hungry! (If you enjoyed this review please see my library of other reviews at bob-the-movie-man.com and sign up to "Follow the Fad". Thanks).