Ratatouille - film review
Friday, after work, N and I went to see Ratatouille, Pixar's latest offering.
I must preface this by saying that I wasn't overly excited to see it because it seems I had a rather different idea regarding what the film was about. N, however, has been enthusiastically anticipating it since he first heard about it ages ago (he's a big fan of good animated films), and it's rare enough that he's this excited about going to see a film, so there was no way we weren't going to see this movie.
The film was spectacular. The animation itself was probably the most beautiful and beautifully-realized animation I've seen (admittedly, I don't watch that much, so perhaps my sample size is too small), but we both felt that on this front alone, Pixar definitely outdid itself. The rats were so lifelike, especially down to the mannerisms, the colors were perfect, the textures were amazing and the incredible different scenes of rats, humans, Paris and food were all so well-done.
It was a nice old-fashioned story, and not silly as I was imagining it to be: from the previews, I thought this would be about a Parisian rat with a gourmet palate and the hijinks that ensue as he tries to satisfy his gourmet palate with the best cuisine Paris has to offer. Instead, this was about a country rat with a gourmet palate who loves to cook. Ha! As if there could be a more perfect film for me! *grin*
Our country rat, Remy, has a hero, Gusteau, a chef of great prominence who wrote a book called Anyone Can Cook. Early in the film, exposition tells us that Gusteau was defeated by the scorn of gloomy food critic Anton Ego (voiced by Peter O'Toole) after his famous Parisian restaurant, Gusteau's, had lost prominence via Ego's scathing reviews, and later died. After Remy is discovered by the elderly lady (in whose house he learns to cook while watching Gusteau's tv cooking show), Remy and his entire clan are forced to flee from her way-over-the-top shotgun blasts. Honestly, who uses a shotgun to kill rats? I had a sneaking suspicion that this was a lesson to us as the audience that such ridiculously violent measures are rarely successful - in the film, the old lady's ceiling collapses from all the shotgun blasts and the rats escape down the river.
And so the adventure begins, with a journey, just as many good stories do. Remy, our plucky hero, is separated from his bigoted-towards-humans father and his brother, Emile, who is possessed of an astonishingly indiscriminate palate, and after a frightening watery trip, Remy finds himself alone in an underground cavern where he remains for some time, waiting and hoping that his family will suddenly appear and make everything all right. Instead, Remy is visited by his hero, Gusteau who appears as a balloon-like, misty familiar who hovers nearby and admits to being a figment of Remy's imagination determined to encourage him to find his destiny. Goaded by his conscience, then, Remy finally climbs out of the sewer and ascends to the rooftops of splendid Paris and discovers that he has been a hop, skip, and a jump away from the restaurant of his spiritual mentor all along!
Remy goes to investigate the premises where he finds a busy kitchen bossed by a small, grumpy chef who takes on a garbage boy whose mother was friends with Gusteau (before his death), and Remy watches as the garbage boy, Linguini, makes a botch of things almost immediately as he accidentally spills a simmering soup, and then when he tries to repair his error by making more, Remy watches in horror as Linguini proceeds to concoct something truly awful. Gusteau appears to Remy then and encourages him to fix the impending disaster that is Linguini's soup.
At this point several things happen very quickly: Linguini discovers that a rat has been playing with the soup, the chef discovers that Linguini has been messing around with the soup and one of the other chefs scoops out a portion and sends it off to be served - and when the furious chef realizes that a soup with which the garbage boy interfered has just gone out, he scrambles to call it back, but it is too late.
The soup, however, is a hit. :)
Later, Linguini is asked to replicate the soup to prove that he really can cook (and that his delicious creation wasn't just a single happy accident), Remy and Linguini enter into a partnership: Remy learns how to control Linguini's body movements (through tugging on his hair) while carefully hidden beneath Linguini's chef-hat, and quickly becomes a culinary star. And through Linguini, Remy is allowed to stretch his culinary creativity which quickly rises in prominence.
The grumpy sell-out chef (who has been using Gusteau's name to sell all manner of frozen food products - a pointed criticism of the marketing strategy employed by many brand-name celebrity chefs today) is ousted when the press discovers that Linguini is actually Gusteau's son and heir. But disaster looms on the horizon for Linguini and Remy when Anton Ego menacingly stalks into Linguini's press conference to inform him that he will be dining at the restaurant to determine whether or not it really deserves all the new hype. It's unfortunate that Remy and Linguini suffer a falling-out which could undermine the entire operation and out of anger and frustration, Remy is led to steal (something his Gusteau-conscience has never permitted him to do) from the kitchen and when Linguini seeks Remy to apologize for their spat, discovers that Remy has been the inside man for an invasion of rats from his former clan, Remy, his family and the clan are banished and the winning partnership dissolved on the eve of the biggest night of Linguini's life.
I won't spoil the rest of the film, though. *smile* It's worth seeing how all this ties up in warm-hearted classic film fashion, and the lessons that are learned by everyone: Remy, Linguini, Remy's father, Ego. I've left out many details in the synopsis above, such as the many colorful characters who populate the film, and the other important relationships, especially Linguini's burgeoning romance with tough sous chef Colette. I also haven't told you how this animated film lovingly portrays both food and Paris in the most spectacular light.
I thought it was a terrific choice that rather thumbs its nose at American snobbery to set a big animated film in Paris and to give some of the characters heavy accents (particularly Colette who provides a fair amount of necessary exposition). I was enormously charmed by this wonderful, heart-warming film about a rat who loves to cook - but of course, really, it's about fulfilling one's dreams and not letting anything stand in the way - about defying cultural stagnation and bigotry - about embracing change as a necessary aspect of life, nature, and evolution - and about the importance of building bridges, cooperation, friendship and family.
And I defy you to walk out of this film without feeling even a little hungry. We certainly did. :) Bon appetit!
