Runtime: 2 hours, 2 minutes
Rating: PG
Director: Lasse Hallström
Quick Impressions:
The movie As Above, So Below is new this week, and based almost entirely on its captivating poster art, I thought, Looks cool! I’m there.
The more I researched this idea, the better and better it seemed. The theater closest to our house had a noon showtime. Not only did that mean cheaper admission (early bird special, you know), but along with the film’s short 90 minute runtime, it dangled the possibility that I could see the movie and still be out in time to get a good spot in the parent loop at the elementary school.
But then I double-checked the showtime using the theater’s phone app and happened across not the poster, but an actual still from the movie itself.
Perhaps it’s wrong to judge an entire movie by a single image, but when your immediate reaction is to scream, “Ahhhhhhhhhhh!” and throw your phone across the room, chased by a rush of visceral dread and the sudden need to search the house from top to bottom for your rosary, then that’s probably a good indicator that the film is not a great fit for you, and you need to look elsewhere for entertainment.
So I decided not to see As Above, So Below after all because it was much too creepy (and also because I remembered that my rosary unexpectedly exploded into a million pieces back when I was still recovering from my last scary movie—a happening that did not do much to reassure me that an evil presence was not at that moment lurking inside my house, I might add).
Based on all the evidence, I decided what I really needed to do (besides buy a new rosary) was purchase a ticket to The Hundred-Foot Journey instead.
My only remaining problem was that I kept forgetting the title of the movie, seeing it on a list, and thinking, Ooh! The Hundred-Foot Journey. I’ve never heard of that. Maybe I should see that instead of…what’s the one I’m seeing called again?
My husband kept joking all morning that I was preparing to watch the biopic of a snail. To me, it always sounds like a documentary about Iditarod racers, which is a pretty good indicator that besides being superstitious with a terrible memory, I’m also not a great judge of distance.
Anyway, this movie is actually about two warring restaurants—one run by a delightful Indian family, the other by an imperious Helen Mirren—operating just a hundred feet apart in the streets of an otherwise sleepy little French village. By seeing it, I still got a look at Paris, just minus the nightmarish ghoul people that live in the catacombs in that horror movie I skipped.
The Hundred-Foot Journey is based on a book that is probably exactly the sort of thing I love to read on airplanes, the kind of charming, harmless little romantic comedy that you know right from the start will have a happy (if highly predictable) ending.
Supposedly this film was released back on August 8th, but I have no memory of that (maybe because I was already headed to Disneyland that weekend). I guess that technically it’s a summer movie, but I’ve already finished my write-up of the summer this year.
Hopefully this will be pleasantly mediocre, I thought as the previews ran. That way I can retroactively squeeze it into Tier 3, which includes a paltry three movies. And guess what? After actually watching the movie, I am happy to report that if I were to add it to my summer movie review (which I won’t), that is exactly where I would put it, smack dab in the middle of my internally inconsistent third tier.
Frankly the first two-thirds of the movie deserve an (A), but then there’s that pesky remaining third. What makes the last third pesky is that it’s there. For what it is, this movie feels a good thirty minutes too long to me. Still I enjoyed it. It’s easy to watch and has a number of fine qualities, including a strong performance by the lovely Helen Mirren whose work is always a pleasure to watch.
The Good:
This movie is basically a romantic comedy, and I’m not always crazy about those. But I do love a feel good story that includes a wacky family fighting to stay together in this crazy world, and who wouldn’t enjoy an entire movie about cooking delicious, meaningful meals? I’m a huge fan of both Indian food and serene French villages, so I found this movie winningly easy-on-the-eyes. Instead of looking at gruesome, subterranean ghoul children, I got to feast my eyes on so much color, vibrancy, wholesomeness, and wonder.
Movies about cooking are almost always fun to watch. Usually they make some analogy about feeding the body and feeding the soul, so you leave the theater feeling satisfied on all counts. Watching loving families prepare home cooked meals is vicariously comforting. (And this is the reason I can never look away from a well-made Thanksgiving story, especially that infectious What’s Cooking? that used to come on cable all the time and pull me away completely from whatever I was supposed to be doing.)
The beginning of the story was in many ways my favorite part. The Kadam family is so charming, and what happens to them initially is so horrific that I can’t imagine any audience not developing an immediate attachment to these lovable, sympathetic protagonists.
Once that first big tragedy is out of the way, this is also a very relaxing movie to watch. Helen Mirren, by far the biggest star of the movie, plays the antagonist. So we never doubt for one moment how the movie will end. We may not know all the particulars, but the ugly war must eventually blossom into a beautiful friendship. Anything else just wouldn’t make any sense with the set up we’re given.
Mirren is a fantastic actress, so of course, she gives a lovely (and sometimes genuinely moving) performance. I also particularly loved Om Puri. (Seriously. Loved him. His craggy face was spellbinding, and he made Papa Kadam so thoroughly charming that I would have married him) (under other circumstances, obviously).
I keep using the word “charming,” but that’s simply because the movie truly is very charming. There’s just no better way to put it. The Hundred-Foot Journey focuses mostly on the temporary conflict between good people making good food who must learn to be good to each other.
Charlotte Le Bon and Manish Dayal make a very attractive pair of young protagonists (young compared to Mirren and Puri). I’m not sure that I know any of Le Bon’s other work, but I like her a lot here, and Dayal manages to make Hassan’s soulful eyes say so much more than his words. Though older, Mirren and Puri are equally attractive (perhaps more attractive) and (for me) a bit more compelling.
I also love what Hassan’s mother tells him early on about cooking. It’s an appealing idea, the notion of creating ghosts for some beautiful, restorative purpose.
Funniest Scene:
I knew I would like this movie when it gave us that hilarious, “We bought a house very near the airport” moment. That’s an early highlight for sure. Papa’s assessment of the problem with the truck also let me know immediately, “Well I’m going to love this character!”
Thankfully humor is a plentiful ingredient in this sweet little story about life, love, and cooking good food.
Best Action Sequence:
The champagne stealing bit—the way he says it, the way he does it—thoroughly sold me. I was like, “I sure hope she falls for him because right now, I would marry this man!”
Best Scene:
Mirren’s reaction to the Bastille Day “celebrations” is the absolute highlight of the movie. As I watched an earlier scene, I thought to myself, Wow, you can tell we’re watching a book adaptation because if this isn’t foreshadowing I’ll eat my own head! (That hyperbolic threat from Olivier Twist just flew into my brain for some reason).
Mirren plays these powerful moments extremely well, making this part of the film truly moving.
Best Scene Visually:
As an extension of the scene I just described, the wall washing is wonderfully powerful.
Of course, the food, the vistas, the food, the fireworks, the food—all of this is incredibly visually rich and easy to watch. Have I mentioned that they cook a lot of food, food that looks not only tasty but desirably wholesome and nourishing?
I must say it’s also very pleasant to watch Hassan and Marguerite meandering through the overgrown fields on the lookout for wild mushrooms. The fields themselves look fresh and pretty, and so do Dayal and Le Bon.
The Negatives:
And I thought that ghoulish still of As Above, So Below made Paris look unappealing! Good grief! It’s pretty hard to make Paris look like an undesirable place to live! The Hundred-Foot journey clearly deserves some kind of special award for this unprecedented feat. (The Legion of Dishonour, maybe?) (I don’t know why I spelled dishonor with a u, unless my brain thinks pretending to be British is the classiest way to translate French when fêting a feat.)
Ordinarily, movies (also books, magazines, music, computer games, cartoons, comic strips, sophisticated pigeons) play up the aesthetic appeal of Paris, the city of lights, love, adorable little rats wearing chef’s hats…
Not this movie!
This movie’s like, Ugh, Paris! Hassan spends the last half hour of the film guzzling wine with a glazed-eyed stare, looking as if he wants to snarl, “Why did I have to come to Paris! Why do I have to work in such luxury and win such praise? Why am I constantly surrounded by all this appalling beauty and this worthless wealth?”
Seriously, if you want someone to compile a tourism brochure touting the magical wonders of upper class Parisian life, Robespierre would be a better choice for that job than Hassan Kadam.
They’re like, “The world is your oyster! Paris is yours! The sky’s the limit! You can only go up!” And he moans around looking tortured and vacant and lifeless—like those empty-eyed ghouls that apparently live in catacombs beneath the Eiffel Tower in some other late August releases. All of Paris is rejoicing at Hassan’s arrival, and he reacts like the Griswald kids when they’re told they have to take a European vacation.
Honestly I understand why Hassan is unhappy, and I’m glad for him that he eventually finds happiness again. But come on. Every aspect of this movie’s plot is completely predictable. So we sit there knowing for a long, long time how the whole thing is going to end. (There are limited options. We may not know the exact details of what will happen, but we get the general idea.)
The movie is good, but it’s much too long. It peaks when Helen Mirren has her Bastille Day moment. In the year that follows, conflicts are resolved at a slow and natural rate. I think the movie should have ended after the phone call and the champagne. That would have been a great ending. All the serious, unnatural problems have been resolved.
The problem plaguing Marguerite and Hassan is of a different nature, and I’m afraid it’s likely to hang around long term. If you have exceptional talent and wish to become an expert in your field, pursuing a long-term relationship with someone with similar gifts and an identical goal almost always spells trouble. Of course, it’s all very romantic to imagine that one day the two of you will be Pierre and Marie Curie, but what if you end up more like Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald? Nobody wants to be Zelda Fitzgerald!
It’s not like Hassan and Marguerite share some vague goal like hoping for a promotion. Both of them want to become the finest chef in France. How should they resolve that? It doesn’t seem right to tell her, “Put your own dreams aside, you silly girl! Don’t you see that this is your chance to snag a successful husband?” Similarly, we can’t advise Hassan, “Just be a gentleman and let her crush your spirits. She’ll bring home the bacon. You just relax and have another glass of coma-inducing wine as you gaze blankly out on the soul-crushing beauty of Paris.”
They find a solution, but good grief it takes forever! To me, this part of the movie feels tacked on, slow, and unnatural. The first two thirds of the movie is one of the most likeable, engaging films I’ve seen all summer, but then for some reason we have to endure Part 2: Hassan’s Vague Drinking Problem. I still liked all the characters, but I started to feel impatient. And then I actually had time to continue feeling impatient, a sure sign that more editing is needed.
Overall:
This movie has limited ambitions. It’s a heart-warming romantic comedy with exotic cooking and breathtaking locations thrown in to spice up the usual, tired Hollywood rom-com recipe. Helen Mirren and Om Puri are both fantastic, and the emotionally resonant resolution of their “war” elevates the entire film. Still the movie isn’t angling for an Oscar. It just wants to bring its audience some wholesome, edifying entertainment, and it does that quite well.
If it were up to me, I’d give this tasty film three Michelin stars. Of course, I don’t think you’re allowed to give Michelin stars to movies, and I’m positive I’m not allowed to give Michelin stars to anyone. So the filmmakers would probably have to give the stars back upon my imminent arrest, which sounds like a demoralizing ordeal for everyone. Maybe I should just say, “You won’t regret seeing this sweet, savory morsel of late summer cinema,” and leave the Michelin stars to the gods.