The Movie, not the dish

Rating: 7/10 (9 November 2015)

There was a rumour doing the rounds a few years back that rats had been observed at some of the larger London cinemas. Apparently they would steal in during the show, prowl the aisles under cover of darkness and vacuum spilt popcorn from around the feet of the punters. Of course this is alarming and of course this is horrible ... and yet after sitting through the latest offering from Pixar (and at a large London cinema to boot), I feel oddly sanguine at the prospect. Among its many, myriad delights, Ratatouille is a film to make you love the rat.
And there is no escaping it: Ratatouille's rats are unmistakably ratty. They have snaking tails and skittering claws and rapid heartbeats that make their flanks quiver and their fur tremble. Sometimes they bite. While Brad Bird's film is being distributed by Disney as part of an ongoing deal with Pixar, it's safe to assume that these vermin would never have passed muster during the wholesome heyday of Uncle Walt. In one early scene, an entire horde of them is forcibly flushed out of their nest and the sight is so viscerally shocking that it takes a second to check yourself and realise that, hang on, we're not against these rats, we're on their side. Fortunately, it is only a second.
The film's hero is Remy, who would probably not be caught dead eating discarded popcorn in any case. This is because Remy (voiced by US comedian Patton Oswalt) is a culinary genius. He totters on his hind legs to keep his front paws clean and generally conceals the soul of a poet inside the body of an incontinent, disease- riddled rodent. Alighting at a top Paris restaurant, he promptly becomes the puppet-master of Linguini (Lou Romano), a lowly kitchen boy. Installed beneath a chef's hat, the rat communicates his gifts by pulling at Linguini's hair; a complex series of tugs, yanks and passes that has the kid jerking like a marionette from the oregano to the saffron and over to the pan. Naturally the diners love Remy's cuisine while lavishing Linguini with all the credit. None of them come down with botulism.
Sign up to our Film Today email
Read more Judged solely in terms of animation technique, Bird's film is a masterpiece. The over-bright, fauvist colours that typified those early CGI outings have now been tempered by a richer, more subtle palette. There is a tangy sense of authenticity to the kitchen scenes, where the medallions of monkfish are lovingly prepared by a band of ex-cons and cardsharps before being bussed through to a palatial dining room that thrums to an undertone of clinking glasses and murmured conversation.
Ratatouille is equally confident when it scurries outside. Pixar productions have always boasted a distinctive architectural nous, as witnessed in Monsters Inc's recreation of America's blue-collar neighbourhoods or The Incredibles' pristine sweep of retro 1950s suburbia. Here Bird's animators concoct a Paris of bustling little squares and misty riverside walkways. Certainly, Remy's first sight of the city, scuttling up a rooftop to check out the skyline, is as swooningly romantic as anything you'll find in Amélie or Les Amants du Pont-Neuf.
ADVERTISING
Advertisement
Except that's just the half of it. The perennial cliché trotted out about Pixar movies is that they are smart and soulful enough to be enjoyed by adults as well as children, as though this is somehow a shock and not a quality shared by every great family film right back to The Wizard of Oz. True to form, Ratatouille contains plenty of exuberant set pieces (fraught chases along the Seine, some gaudy slapstick involving a visiting health inspector). But this riff on Cyrano de Bergerac also works as a heartfelt parable of illegitimacy and a passionate plea for the role of the outsider. The clue is in the DNA of the three main characters. Colette (voiced by Janeane Garofalo) is a talented cook struggling to find a niche in a male- dominated profession. Linguini is revealed to be the unacknowledged bastard son of a noted celebrity chef. And Remy, of course, is a rat and therefore reviled by polite society. The diners love his food but want him dead.
When Ratatouille stuttered at the US box office this summer, the subsequent fallout hinted at a growing rift between the Pixar animators and their paymasters at Disney; a marriage of convenience that is now pulling in opposite directions. Bizarrely, Bird's film gives the impression of anticipating this clash, this tussle between art and commerce, and bows out with a scene that places itself firmly on the avant garde, in a shabby bistro frequented by beret- wearing students and thrill-seeking hip-cats.
For good measure, it gives the last word to a snooty food critic (Peter O'Toole) who sees the light and argues that the best role a reviewer can play is to champion the new; hailing those unsung heroes who are trying something different, regardless of their background, colour, creed or species.