The Hundred-Foot Journey (2014)

Genres

Comedy, Drama

Director

Lasse Hallström

Country

USA

Cast

Helen Mirren, Om Puri, Manish Dayal, Rohan Chand, Charlotte Le Bon, Amit Shah, Farzana Dua Elahe, Dillon Mitra, Aria Pandya, Michel Blanc, Shuna Lemoine, Clément Sibony, Juhi Chawla, Vincent Elbaz

Storyline

After leaving India due to a fatal tragedy, the Kadam family settle in a small town in southern France where they open an Indian restaurant right across the road from a Michelin-starred restaurant.

Opinion

I love food, I love eating and I love cooking and I guess those are the reasons why I was able to enjoy The Hundred-Foot Journey because, honestly, it isn't that good of a film (on paper).

The story is very simple and predictable and manages to be quite a mess because there are too many plots. There's the rivalry between the two restaurants - which I thought was going to be the focus of the film but I was wrong -, there's Hassan's (one of the members of the Kadam family) success, there's Hassan's love story with a French woman, and there are the passion and love for food. Too many stories to tell and none told decently.

And yet the film managed to keep me interested and engaged from start to finish. There are moments where nothing is really happening, but somehow I wasn't bored by that.

I guess it's all on the comedy. The film has a light-hearted humour that comes out quite naturally, especially from Om Puri who has a great comic timing.

Overall, The Hundred-Foot Journey isn't the best comedy out there, nor it is the best comedy revolving around food, but it's just fine for when you want to switch off your brain.