Director: Lasse Hallstrom
Cast: Helen Mirren, Om Puri, Manish Dayal, Charlotte Le Bon
Stars: Three
Jostling their way through vendors, shoppers and handcarts, a young boy and his mum (played by Juhi Chawla) are picking vegetables and meats from a crowded Mumbai market. The lad, Hassan Kadam, concentrates on selecting the sea urchin and tastes one to ascertain whether his mum should buy it. The fact that there is a benevolent vendor in a crowded fish market in Mumbai who will not only — bizarrely enough — sell sea urchins but also let a Muslim boy with a Hindu surname merrily taste it, should’ve been the first red flag for 'The Hundered Foot Journey'.
The film is full of such hyperbolic liberties that one wonders if any research had even gone into the making of the film. More on that later. A tragic turn of events sends the Kadams to London and then France to seek asylum, while a broken down car in the Midi Pyrenees sets them on a culinary battle against Michelin-starred restaurant Le Saule Pleureur. The feted restaurant, which is a 100 feet across their Maison Mumbai, triggers a cultural clash that is entertaining, if not for contrived.
Hassan is the star chef of the Indian restaurant who befriends Maguerite early on when the family’s car broke down. Despite being competitors, they manage to strike a friendship with the pretty French lass even helping him pick up the ropes of French cooking. What follows is the journey of the Indian chef who scales culinary heights while encountering a few personal obstacles along the way.
Until the intermission, the movie looks like it has some direction and the characters some meat. The second half spirals into a pointless narrative that is not even aided much by some good performances. By the time the film concludes, you would’ve gone through at least three instances of presuming that the climax has been reached, so when it does end you’re left with not much of a response.
For a film that promises much food porn, the camera work is largely focused on the French cuisine with at best a long shot of the Indian food. Even if you’re led to believe that the battle between the two restaurants has been settled, there is very little information about what happens to Maison Mumbai once Hassan acquires all that fame. Also, pandering to the notion of an expat Muslim family in exile, the Kadams are a large group with children in the age group of 8 to 25 in this millennium. The last two kids have not much to do and albeit cute are simply wasted.
There’s a lot of that flab going around in the movie. Om Puri is superb in what is essentially an extension of his East is East role. He plays the patriarch with such classy dry humour that you can’t help but feel for him. Mirren, although looked like she was straight out of the sets ofQueen, in the opening shot, has put together a refined performance one expects of an actress of her calibre. The Puri-Mirren scenes are a lesson in acting and delivery of lines. Their spats to their friendship and the combined sense concern they exhibit are really what save the film.
Dayal’s chemistry with Le Bon is patchy while the latter really does put out a more convincing performance in being part-friend-part-competitor. He lacks the charisma to confidently carry forward the second half of the film and doesn’t really have much of a connect with the audience to win their empathy either. Amit Shah, who plays Mansoor, deserves special mention for playing Hassan’s older brother in a charmingly bumbling way.
Performances aside, the film is flawed in its complete disregard for logic in some parts and pointlessness of details in others. How Hassan manages to hold onto a box of masalas for years after his mum’s demise should baffle any home chef. Spices, unlike wine, as one would know, don’t work well over the years.
Juhi Chawla, in some inconsistent makeup that is meant to denote age, is seen spewing some gibberish to her young son about killing and cooking for ghosts. Such a waste of an actor and a role. Even the clothes that Hassan’s sister is seen wearing make it seem like no matter where Indians progress, they will always wear the most garishly silky attire even if they dress like normal people in the day.
Moments like these make you cringe as an Indian because one would’ve expected a little more attention would’ve been paid to contemporary India. Then again, the film has a disorientingly lacking sense of time, so you’d be forgiven if you’ve no idea when it was set.
The music by A.R. Rahman is as uninspiring as his works in Million Dollar Arm and one hardly has anything to take from it sonically. The landscape shots are beautiful but nothing out of the ordinary. All this said, watch the movie for Puri, Mirren and some super food shots. It’s feel-good with not much of a soul. Much like cooking without dirtying your hands.
