Movie – The Hundred Foot Journey

A film about food – Indian food? I’m in!Surprisingly, I didn’t come out of the cinema on a Sunday afternoon starving. Well not for food anyway. I came out into the September sunshine hungry for my own childhood, filled with family, festivities and food.In fact, I thought the food would be the star of this film before I went in. Once it started, showing the family leaving India after their mother dies in the fire that unhappy post-election rioters started at their restaurant, I felt the two younger children had the best lines.I wish the kiddies did have more presence but actually, the star is Om Puri, playing the father, (I know his face even if I don’t remember his name and you will too) who always brightens up the screen for me. Helen Mirren may have been bought into to raise the $$ but it could have been any British dame; she’s the one that speaks French and to the untrained ear, pulls of the accent.I delighted in the story of the family of five travelling to Europe and after London appeared to cold, they decided on mainland Europe, only stopping in a village in the South of France when the brakes failed on their camper van.

“Breaks fail for a reason”

Being towed into the village by a helpful local, Papa spots a building for sale which he ends up buying and setting up an Indian restaurant – just 100 feet across the road from a Michelin stared restaurant run my Mirren’s character.Taking aside the fact that there is no way a young women will invite 5 strangers to her apartment and give them food and the French serotypes through the film, and a few stories I would have told differently, I loved this film.Food + Indian = very good from this critic.8/10Smile factor 9/10