sea urchin 100 foot journey

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Clash of culinary cultures in ‘The Hundred-Foot Journey’

The 100 feet in “The Hundred-Foot Journey” — a fairy tale-like film that examines cultural differences through food — is the physical distance between an Indian restaurant opened by new immigrants in a tiny town in the south of France and a well-established Michelin-starred dining room across the street. The distance initially seems insurmountable.

All films that center on food elicit strong reactions from people in the food industry, so we brought together a French chef, French-born university lecturer, anthropologists, a francophile, and Indian-Americans to watch and share their thoughts: Jacky Robert, chef and co-owner of the Petit Robert Bistro restaurants; Thierry Gustave, French lecturer at University of Massachusetts Boston; Merry White, professor of anthropology at Boston University; Gus Rancatore, owner of Toscanini’s Ice Cream in Cambridge; Tulasi Srinivas, associate professor of anthropology at Emerson College; and artist Rani Sarin.

The group agreed that the film was less about food and more about family, connections, identity, and memories. And though sometimes clichéd and unrealistic, with food scenes that were not quite right (such as a spice box that miraculously makes it through customs from India to England, then through Europe, with the jars still full of spices that are apparently “fresh”), the film left these viewers with a good feeling. “The movie was cheesy,” says White. “But it was the kind of cheese that works: melts in your mouth and not too smelly.”

“I was attracted to the concept of food bringing people together,” director Lasse Hallstrom says on the phone from the West Coast. “The Hundred-Foot Journey,” produced by Oprah Winfrey and Steven Spielberg, among others, and based on the best-selling novel of the same name by Richard C. Morais, does succeed in that concept, the group agreed. “Food in this movie initially divides, then brings people together,” says Srinivas.

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The film portrays the clash when the head of the Kadam family, Papa (Om Puri), opens Maison Mumbai across from the fancy Le Saule Pleureur (literally “the weeping willow”), owned by Madame Mallory (Helen Mirren) in the idyllic French village of Saint-Antonin-Noble-Val.

In an opening scene, Mummy, Papa’s wife, is racing after a food vendor in a bustling Mumbai market, her young son, Hassan (later played by Manish Dayal), in tow. The shot captures the chaos and color of India but Srinivas saw something that would never happen. “No Indian woman will run around like that, arms flailing. They will hold themselves in, gliding through spaces.”

Son Hassan shows an extraordinary talent for cooking at a young age. His culinary school is the family restaurant, his teacher is Mummy. The sense of destiny and spirituality fundamental to India are obvious throughout the film, particularly in a scene where Mummy tells Hassan, “When you cook you make ghosts,” by which she means memories.

When Mummy perishes in a fire during postelection rioting, the Kadam family comes unhinged. Papa and the five children (ages about 10 to mid-20s) leave India and wander through England and Europe, searching for a place to open a restaurant, finally settling, accidentally, in Saint-Antonin-Noble-Val. “They are looking to connect through memories,” Gustave says. “Memories of food.”

The one food throughout the film that seems to remind Hassan of India is sea urchin, an ingredient in a seafood soup that Mummy cooked while explaining, “To cook you must kill.” In fact, the sea urchin is rarely used in Indian cooking, Sarin says, and in a country where vegetarianism prevails, most people would dispute the cook-and-kill statement.

Before they decide where to land, Papa’s car brakes fail near Saint-Antonin-Noble-Val and Marguerite (Charlotte Le Bon), Madame Mallory's sous chef, rescues the family and brings them to her house. Marguerite offers them food — tomatoes, cheeses, cold cuts — and the Kadams are beguiled by the lushness and flavors. Papa remarks, “I think my family is afraid they have died and gone to heaven.”

“That was a great scene,” White says. “The family at first was a bit shy about accepting food, then really enjoyed it, reaching all at once with their hands. Very natural and the food was simple and beautiful, even without ‘beauty shots.’ ”

White adds she thought it was curious that there was pork roast, considering that the Indian family is Muslim, and that they all tasted some.

One of director Hallstrom's main concerns was avoiding commercial-like food shots and he achieved that, said the group. The food scenes are used to set up and resolve clashes between the two establishments. Madame Mallory's initial disparagement of Indian food is obvious when she asks, “A curry is a curry is it not?” But later she embraces Hassan's Indian touches to French classics. When he adds cumin and mustard seeds to boeuf Bourguignon, Madame Mallory touts it as boeuf Bourguignon a la Hassan.

Papa, against his children’s advice, buys a dilapidated building across from Le Saule Pleureur to start an Indian restaurant. His son, Mansur, cautions, “The French don’t know Indian food. They have their own food and it is famous throughout the world.” Chef Robert said the scene made him smile. “The French do have their own food and are conservative about it,” he said.

Madame Mallory considers Maison Mumbai's garish Taj Mahal-like entrance cheap decor, and its loud music distasteful. She tells Papa, “If your food is anything like your music, I suggest you turn it down.”

“I will turn the music down, but I will turn the heat up,” the gruff, outspoken Papa responds, staking out his territory.

Srinivas says the divide here is typical of each culture. “The French kitchen is about stability and hierarchy, whereas the Indian kitchen is about creativity, pitching in, ad-hoc cooking,” she says.

The escalation of the restaurant-war is offset by a blossoming romance between Marguerite and Hassan. Marguerite gives him French cookbooks and shows him how to forage for wild mushrooms. After a series of well-worn plot turns, Hassan even tries to win Madame Mallory over by making her an omelet.

We watch Madame Mallory from the back as she takes her first bite of omelet in the Mumbai kitchen. Her back stiffens, then we see her face softening. Hassan's omelet has Indian aromatics. Madame Mallory is enticed by the mix of sensations, the heat of red chiles, the coolness of cilantro. “If there is a sexual moment in the film, it is this,” Rancatore says. “The range of emotions she displays.”

Chef Robert says that his own chef at Maison Robert asked him to make an omelet when he first went to that kitchen. Making an omelet right is a test of technique, though the chef admits he might not hire someone who makes an omelet Hassan's way, with cream. “You don’t put cream in an omelet,” he says. “That is a shortcut used when someone doesn’t know how to make an omelet.”

Hassan goes on to study French classics under Madame Mallory. The young chef experiments, combining French techniques with Indian flourishes — cumin in boeuf Bourguignon, garam masala in another entree, saffron in a sauce. Madame Mallory asks Hassan why he must change a 200-year-old French recipe. “Because 200 years is long enough,” he replies. While he runs her kitchen, Le Saule Pleureur earns a second Michelin star.

When Hassan moves to Paris to work in a top-rated restaurant, his success is marred by loneliness, this time for the French village and the young woman who taught him about wild mushrooms.

Late one night, he sees the food porter, a South Asian man, eating food the porter’s wife prepared. Hassan is offered a bite and becomes emotional. “Every bite takes you home,” he says.

And that is essentially at the heart of the film. Home, says New Delhi native Sarin, “is where your family is, where your kitchen is.”

Early viewers

Sena Desai Gopal can be reached at [email protected].

‘The Hundred-Foot Journey’ Review: Amazing Food and an Overcooked Plot

Walt Disney

In the middle of a busy Indian marketplace, a young boy steals a taste of a coveted sea urchin. The way he closes his eyes and tastes the flavor shows us (and the urchin’s vendor) that he is more than just a curious boy – he understands and appreciates food.

From its opening scene, The Hundred-Foot Journey is driven by its stomach, and director Lassee Hallström brings audiences as close to the amazing food featured on screen as he can without letting you taste it yourself. Unfortunately the narrative loses momentum when it shifts its focus away from the plate (and those filling it).

Growing up working in his family’s restaurant, Hassan ( Manish Dayal ) takes advantage of the opportunity to learn how to cook beside his mother ( Juhi Chawla ). After an unfortunate incident in their hometown, Hassan and his family find themselves driven out of India to seek refuse elsewhere in Europe – eventually ending up in France. As the family drives through the French countryside, their car breaks down, but helpful stranger (and fellow aspiring chef) Marguerite ( Charlotte Le Bon ) happens upon them and takes them in.

Thanks to the family’s patriarch Papa ( Om Puri ) and his stubborn determination to re-open their restaurant (especially after he finds the perfect location), the family may not be leaving as soon as they thought. Papa refuses to heed his family’s warnings when they tell him his perfect location is exactly one hundred feet (they measured) from the town’s most successful restaurant, owned by Madame Mallory ( Helen Mirren ), but he insists on introducing their cuisine (and Hassan’s talent) to French culture.

There are two conflicts that drive The Hundred-Foot Journey — Hassan and Marguerite’s quest to become accomplished chefs while coming to terms with their burgeoning attraction to one another, and Madame Mallory and Papa’s quest to out-do one another with the success of their respective restaurants. While it is entertaining to watch Madame Mallory and the old man try and best one another by harassing the town’s food loving mayor ( Michel Blanc ) over petty grievances with the hope of getting each other’s restaurants shut down, it is Hassan’s passion for food that is the most compelling part of the film.

Dayal delivers a solid performance, but his sudden character shifts from hesitant cook to aspiring chef to potential burnout (plus his relationship with Marguerite moving from potential love interest to competitor) are a bit too jarring to be fully believed. Hassan is a shy young talent who loves his family (who, outside of Papa, are all used as background noise throughout most of the film) so when success seems to turn him into an emotionless, possibly alcoholic shell, the shift feels incredibly sudden and false. Hallström also falters in developing the relationship between Madame Mallory and Papa, making their antagonism feel more convenient than meaningful. Mirren and Puri are consistently funny in their roles, even charming in moments, but their relationship feels near schizophrenic as they move from enjoying an evening cocktail together to a disagreement to dancing the night away – all in the span of a few minutes.

Fortunately Hallström knows when to focus on the food and wisely zooms in, letting the bright ingredients fill the frame whenever someone is cooking or tasting. Much is said about Hassan’s talent as a chef, and Hallström focuses beautifully the way Hassan uses food to create flavor combinations that make his rising (Michelin) star undeniable. As he makes an important meal for Madame Mallory, we see the crack of every egg and the addition of every spice, making you feel like you are learning the recipe as Hassan is creating it.

Hassan and his family’s journey is not an easy one, but Hallström cannot seem to stick to a steady tone and decide if The Hundred-Foot Journey is all fantasy with moments of hardship or hardship made worthwhile by moments of joy. While the film has scenes that feel too easy, these narrative shortcuts are easily forgiven when you take the film for the foodie fantasy it is – beautiful cuisine in a beautiful place (beautifully shot by Linus Sandgren ) prepared and eaten by beautiful people all set to beautiful music from composer A.R. Rahman . It may not be wholly believable, but it is fantastic escapism.

The Hundred-Foot Journey would have been better served to keep the film’s focus on Hassan and his journey from cook to chef (instead of a scurrilous battle between restaurateurs), but it is a sumptuously shot tale full of good food, scenic backdrops, wonderful music and real passion that all make it well worth the reservation.

Upside: Solid performance from newcomer Dayal; menu-worthy cinematography from Sandgren; wisely used close ups of food being prepared and tasted; a wonderful, uplifting score from Rahman.

Downside: Tonal issues and a slightly disjointed narrative structure; character shifts feel sudden and forced; disappointing, one-note performances from Mirren and Puri.

On the Side: The Hundred-Foot Journey is based on Richard C. Morais’ novel and marks Dayal’s first time playing a lead in a feature film.

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Movie Review

Too Many Cooks Spoil the Village

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By A.O. Scott

• Aug. 7, 2014

The first faces on screen at a recent advance showing of “The Hundred-Foot Journey” belonged to Oprah Winfrey and Steven Spielberg, who do not appear in the movie itself but are credited among its producers. It’s a bit unusual to be subjected to a promo trying to sell you on a movie you have already committed to seeing, but Mr. Spielberg and Ms. Winfrey clearly could not contain themselves, and took a moment to share their enthusiasm. In the clip (which has also aired on television), Ms. Winfrey, using the trademark falsetto singsong that is her version of conversational italics, tells us how excited she is to present this amazing movie, while Mr. Spielberg uses variations on the word “incredible” at least three times. Noting that “The Hundred-Foot Journey,” based on a popular novel by Richard C. Morais , is about food, Ms. Winfrey asks, “Can I say it’s delicious?”

Who could stop her? But, on the other hand: Who would believe her? There is a lot of soft-core culinary montage in the movie, directed by Lasse Hallstrom with the easygoing blend of elegance and vulgarity that has been his signature at least since “Chocolat.” Eggs are cracked in slow motion and whisked to the sounds of A. R. Rahman’s transnational airport music score. Vegetables are chopped with melodramatic frenzy. Tomatoes fairly burst in the golden sunlight of southern France. Words like “cèpes,” “garam masala,” “écrevisses” and “tandoor” are uttered with almost erotic intensity. And yet “The Hundred-Foot Journey” is likely neither to pique your appetite nor to sate it, leaving you in a dyspeptic limbo, stuffed with false sentiment and forced whimsy and starved for real delight.

Well, maybe not entirely. Helen Mirren and Om Puri are the top-billed players here, and time spent watching them is never entirely wasted. Mr. Puri is Papa Kadam, the patriarch of an Indian family that has been in the restaurant business for generations. He and his four children arrive in a small town in the south of France and set up Maison Mumbai, where the smell of their spices and the sound of their music offends the sensibilities of Madame Mallory (Ms. Mirren), proprietress of the venerable Michelin-starred establishment across the street. The clash of imperious and irascible that these two well-seasoned actors perform is spirited and effortless, but there is nowhere near enough of it.

Instead, there is a culture clash gastro-rom-com spooned out with extreme caution. The main character is Mr. Kadam’s son Hassan (Manish Dayal), a gifted and handsome cook, who supplies early voice-over narration and later exchanges smoldering glances and stolen kisses with Marguerite (Charlotte Le Bon), a sous-chef in Madame Mallory’s restaurant. She lends him classic French cookbooks, and he cross-pollinates their tried-and-true recipes with flavors and techniques from back home.

All of which would be fine, even captivating, if “The Hundred-Foot Journey” were really interested in food, culture, ambition, family or any of the other themes it reduces to slogans and clichés. But it is so systematically wrong about all of these things as to seem actively dishonest. Hassan and his family flee Mumbai in the wake of political violence described as following from “some election or other.” French xenophobia receives similarly cursory, abstract treatment. There are some racist hooligans in the village, and one in Madame Mallory’s kitchen, which is plausible enough.

Madame’s culinary chauvinism, in contrast, seems as dated and stereotypical as the frog’s legs and escargots on her menu, and the film’s assumptions about gender and cooking. Women here can nurture and spot talented chefs, but that status is implicitly reserved for men.

The French are fussy and snobbish, the Indians clannish and boisterous, and the movie is in such a hurry to avoid real conflict that it also avoids suspense, drama and emotional impact. Mr. Dayal, in spite of his sensitive, brooding good looks, has a way of disappearing on screen, and no real heat develops between him and Ms. Le Bon. The plot lurches and meanders, stapling tepid scenes of comedy to flimsy bits of melodrama with musical passages and repetitive long shots of the pretty countryside. Mr. Hallstrom seems to lack either the ability or the desire to flesh out secondary characters or to attend to the textures of local life. You have caught more evocative glimpses of France and Mumbai in television commercials.

If the food were any good, such lapses might be more tolerable. But despite a late, knowing excursion to Paris and the trendy world of molecular gastronomy, “The Hundred-Foot Journey” is at its worst when it steps behind the stove. At one point, we are treated to a brief lesson on the five canonical sauces that are the basis of classical French cooking. One of these is hollandaise , which then appears to be prepared with olive oil, which would make it aioli, or perhaps mayonnaise, but not hollandaise as Madame Mallory and her old-school ilk would recognize it. This may sound like a small, pedantic quibble, but a movie that continually proclaims its reverence for the discipline of the kitchen and the glories of tradition should pay attention to such details.

If it did, it might find a place alongside “Ratatouille,” “Babette’s Feast” and other touchstones of foodie cinema. But this film is not in love with food; it is commercially invested in the idea that food is something people think they love. It is an empty pastry shell, an artificially sweetened meringue, with no substance or conviction. Early in the film, Hassan samples a sea urchin. “It tastes like life,” his mother tells him. Maybe so, but the dominant flavor of “The Hundred-Foot Journey” is pure banality.

“The Hundred-Foot Journey” is rated PG (Parental guidance suggested). A few hints that eating is a sensual activity connected with other sensual activities.

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• User reviews

The Hundred-Foot Journey

The Kadam family leaves India for France where they open a restaurant directly across the road from Madame Mallory's Michelin-starred eatery. The Kadam family leaves India for France where they open a restaurant directly across the road from Madame Mallory's Michelin-starred eatery. The Kadam family leaves India for France where they open a restaurant directly across the road from Madame Mallory's Michelin-starred eatery.

• Lasse Hallström
• Steven Knight
• Richard C. Morais
• Helen Mirren
• Manish Dayal
• 266 User reviews
• 185 Critic reviews
• 55 Metascore
• 2 wins & 4 nominations

• Madame Mallory

• Jean-Pierre

• Mayor's Wife

• Swedish Chef
• Baleine Grise Porter

• Hassan (7 years old)
• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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Did you know

• Trivia Om Puri (Papa) was called "Papa" by the cast. He also moved out of the hotel they all stayed in so that he would have a place to cook for them.
• Goofs When Hassan is first making the 5 main French sauces, he is is mixing egg yolks in a bowl and adding oil and something that looks like mustard. He is making mayonnaise, not one of the sauces. Hollandaise, the one sauce out of the five made with yolks, is made in a bowl over steaming water and adding clarified butter.

Madame Mallory : What is this flavor that is fighting against the chicken ?

Hassan : I added some spices for flavor to the sauce, and coriander for garnish and freshness.

Madame Mallory : But why change a recipe that is 200 years old ?

Hassan : Because, madam, maybe 200 years is long enough.

• Connections Featured in The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon: Helen Mirren/James Cameron/Spoon (2014)
• Soundtracks Afreen Music by A.R. Rahman Lyrics by Gulzar Performed by Nakash Aziz , A.R. Rahman and the KM Sufi Ensemble

User reviews 266

• peeedeee-94281
• Oct 19, 2019
• How long is The Hundred-Foot Journey? Powered by Alexa
• August 8, 2014 (United States)
• United States
• United Arab Emirates
• Hành Trình Trăm Bước
• Castelnau-de-Lévis, Tarn, France (Lumière, Restaurants)
• Amblin Entertainment
• Dreamworks Pictures
• Harpo Films
• See more company credits at IMDbPro
• $22,000,000 (estimated)
• $54,240,821
• $10,979,290
• Aug 10, 2014
• $89,514,502

Technical specs

• Runtime 2 hours 2 minutes
• Dolby Digital

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The Hundred-Foot Journey review: Puri, Mirren save the film from becoming a stale banquet

Without Mirren and Puri to keep things fresh, The Hundred-Foot Journey ends up feeling like a banquet made of leftovers that’s going on for entirely too long.

The Hundred-Foot Journey begins with a walk through a fictitious Mumbai market. Instead of a shopping list, what we get is an Exotic India checklist. There are bright colours, crowds, heaps of flowers, friendly banter, a lot of jostling and — wait for it — as basket of sea urchins. If you think spotting these in Mumbai is unlikely, then wait for what happens next. A gaggle of women start yelling as they fight with one another over who should get the sea urchins. In this melee is a young boy. He picks up a sea urchin, opens it and sniifs, breathing in its distinctive aroma.

In the unlikely event that sea urchins showed up in your neighbourhood fish market in Mumbai, chances are that the real haggling would be between the fish seller and the buyers, rather than between buyers. If you had the temerity to go around fiddling with the produce and sniffing it, you’d probably get a severe talking to from the seller, especially if you’re a kid.

In The Hundred-Foot Journey , however, the fish seller beams at the boy and sells the entire basket of sea urchins to him. A little later, the boy’s mother tells him, “The sea urchins taste of life…raw, beautiful life. … But to cook, you must kill. You make ghosts. You cook to make ghosts. Spirits that live on in every ingredient.”

If your eyes haven’t rolled to the back of your head, here’s a little nugget for you. The boy’s name is Hassan Kadam. You’d be hard pressed to find a Muslim family with the Hindu surname Kadam in real life, but this is the India of Hollywood movies. Chalta hai , apparently.

Usually, we expect Bollywood to be full of such complete and casual dismissal of logic and realism. In the past decade or so, however, Hollywood has shown that its more than able to beat Bollywood at its own game. So films like Enchanted take the musical format of Hindi blockbusters and use them to tell a sweet and silly story. Recently, 22 Jump Street showed us how stupid, comedic bromances like Humshakals should be done. Now director Lasse Hallstrom is here with The Hundred-Foot Journey , starring Helen Mirren and Om Puri.

In all fairness, despite that ghastly beginning, The Hundred-Foot Journey is a very pleasant watch until interval strikes. The film is about two culinary cultures, Indian and French. Standing between them — sometimes literally — is a young Indian chef named Hassan Kadam (Manish Dayal). As a boy, he stole sea urchins. As a young man, he works with his father (Om Puri) in their homely Indian restaurant, in a tiny French village. Across the road from the Indian eatery is a fancy French fine dining restaurant, run by Madame Mallory (Helen Mirren).

Madame Mallory is not amused by Maison Mumbai, the Kadams’ restaurant. The music is too loud, the Indians are too boisterous and Papa Kadam is not intimidated by her. Hassan, on the other hand, is fascinated by French food and in his spare time, he teaches himself the basics of classic French cuisine. Then one day, Madame Mallory tastes Hassan’s omelette, which may sound a little suspect but is entirely innocent. Amazed by his talent for mixing flavours, she offers him a job at her restaurant.

Will India lose its most brilliant bawarchi to fancy French food? Can there be peace between the straitjacketed French restaurant owner and the boisterous Indians?

So long as Hallstrom has the powers of food porn, and Puri and Mirren making mischievous magic with their acting, The Hundred-Foot Journey  doesn’t trip itself up. It’s an absolute joy to see Puri play Papa, the grumpy, stingy and utterly delightful patriarch of the Kadam family. Mirren is as fantastic as one would expect the award-winning actress to be and the best part of The Hundred-Foot Journey is the war between Madame Mallory and Papa.

She slyly trips up the Kadams by buying out all the ingredients they need. He bribes one of her porters to get her menu, and then returns the favour. She snoops around his backyard, he plays Hindi music at full volume. He also dresses up in wedding finery and literally drags people off the street and into his restaurant.

Along with the gorgeous shots of French food being prepared, all this is fun enough to make you ignore details like The Curious Case of Disappearing Coriander in Hassan’s Omelette. From what we are shown, Hassan’s secret recipe for a fantabulous omelette includes a large bowl full of coriander leaves (and entirely too much paprika). The green against the yellow of the yolks looks spectacular when the mix is being prepared. And yet, the final omelette has no green bits in it. It’s about as mystifying as the trunk of spices that Hassan inherits from his dead mother. The spices in it last for years without losing flavour or freshness.

Still, so long as the food looks pretty, who cares about these details? We don’t, until Mirren and Puri recede into the background, and the beautiful-looking food more or less disappears from the film. Instead, we get close-ups of Hassan’s face, as he goes around collecting Michelin stars the way we collected marbles as kids. There’s also a love story that sinks like inexpertly-made souffle. Hassan’s supposedly exciting new creations are mostly names of dishes or ingredients that are read out and Dayal is just not charismatic enough a screen presence to make us forget about everything that’s half-baked in the film.

The point of The Hundred-Foot Journey is to give the viewer a tasting menu that covers everything from heartwarming home cooking to molecular gastronomy (which according to this film is just strange-looking, soulless food rather than the crazy, magical experience that the cuisine actually offers when it’s done expertly). However, without Mirren and Puri to keep things fresh, The Hundred-Foot Journey ends up feeling like a banquet made of leftovers that’s going on for entirely too long.

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