In The Hundred Food Journey, “Hassan Kadam” played by Manish Dayal says, “Food is memories.” I couldn’t agree with this quote any more. Celebrating life around food, cooking, and eating together is what my family does. While in L.A., I not only got to interview the lead star Manish Dayal, take a cooking class at Le Cordon Bleu, but I also screened the new upcoming movie. The Hundred Food Journey will be in theaters this weekend on August 8th. So is it worth seeing?
I found the movie touching, meaningful, and heart warming. There is something appealing about the exoticness of different spices and cultures coming together to not only create new tastes to your palate but to watch relationships develop. I found that the movie was mostly about Manish Dayal and his journey on becoming one of the world’s best chefs, the relationships he had, plus the relationships that is family had with the new people in France.
The story happens when Hassan loses his mother to a fire and they are displaced from Idea to a small village in France. His mom and him would cook together and she is the one who taught him how. She was passionate about cooking and her spices. After losing her in the fire they end up building a restaurant and settling across the street from another french restaurants ran by Madame Mallory, played by Helen Mirren. Her uptight competitiveness and grudge she held for this family ends up getting broken down as she learns to enjoy their cuisine and culture as well. She ends up taking Hassan under her wing when she realizes how good of a cook his is. They end up working together until he movies on to become a famous chef.
During the story their are several different sub stories happening. You have the story of Hassan becoming a chef, the story of two young adults falling in love who are from two different cultures, an uptight restaurant owner creating a relationship with a stubborn father and competitor. Each story has a lesson that can be learned. This story is filled with many life lessons. At the end you learn that home is where the heart is.
I found the story very touching and moving. To someone who doesn’t shed tears at movies, my eyes definitely teared up. The movie is very sweet, funny, and touching.
U.S. Release date: August 8, 2014
Running time: 122 minutes
Cast: Helen Mirren, Om Puri, Manish Dayal, Charlotte Le Bon
Director: Lasse Hallström
Producers: Steven Spielberg, Oprah Winfrey, Juliet Blake