I can’t believe the Guardian said this about The Hundred Foot Journey:
The Hundred-Foot Journey: cute foodie movie leaves a sour taste
Lasse Hallström’s latest piece of food porn will only be popular among critics looking to ram more metaphors down our throats
Mirren is condemned to using a French accent that’s as cumbersome to her performance as a sumo fat-suit.
I fear the gentleman reviewing must have watched with a carrot in an orifice that it was surely not intended. For to me this movie was pure delight, filled with mirth and pain.
The food of course is significant, but the heart of the story is about an Indian family living in Mumbai who are forced to uproot and leave after a catastrophic tragedy puts an end to the comfortable lives they were leading.
Out of fear for their safety, the family takes up residence in London where they endure a year of vegetables with no soul, along with the deafening Heathrow flight path above them. Unable and unwilling to stay, it is into a battered old van they clamber in search of a new start. And having no particular country in mind, it will be the battered old van who will decide their destiny, by quite literally hurtling them into a small French village, where cultures will clash, food is put to the test, and all as an Indian family take up root.
Om Puri, he of East is East and West is West fame, plays the father of many superbly, moving me at times to cheer, smile and despair with him. To say I was choked when he was faced with allowing his son to grow and move on would be an understatement, I could have hugged the man all night long.
And while Helen Mirren may have lost her French accent occasionally, that didn’t take away from her performance of a Michelin Star restaurant owner, notably one hundred feet from a new Indian Restaurant.
Yes there is a lot of food, which shouldn’t be surprising when one considers the story is based around two restaurants, but there is oh so much more, which every single person watching with me on Saturday evening in Cavendish would appear to agree with, if the laughter and smiles around me had anything to say about it.
Hubby and I loved it, we came out nodding, agreeing it was really something special. There is no doubt this little gem will be settling in my memory along with the Marigold Hotel.
@Ruth2Day 