Ratatouille

Ratatouille is the latest sparkling cartoon from Pixar. As with their hits Toy Story, A Bug’s Life, Monsters Inc., and Finding Nemo, Ratatouille is a well thought out film that is as entertaining for adults as it is for children. The concern with Ratatouille is that it is perhaps more entertaining for adults than it is for children. There are no cute toys that can talk or adorable mindless fish, and there are a surprising number of human characters. As such the marketing tie-ins for Ratatouille are diminished as is the likelihood of another blockbuster for Pixar.

This is not to say that Ratatouille isn’t a wonderful film or that it does not follow the tried and true tradition of a main character torn between following their heart and doing what is expected of them. Simply that a film in which the main character is a rat, regardless of cuteness, and his heartfelt wish is to be a part of the haute cuisine world of Parisian cooking, there may not be the massive appeal that toys and fish and bugs have.

Once again Pixar has thought out who these characters are, what their motivations are, and written a wonderful story of a young rat’s journey to self discovery and adulthood. Pixar takes its time and realizes that if the characters and the story aren’t good it doesn’t matter how nice it looks or how much marketing they do. But of course, the film looks amazing, between twinkling Parisian skylines and torrents of rushing sewer water the team at Pixar again delivers computer animation full of warmth and depth and excitement.

Ratatouille follows the exploits of a rat named Remy who begins with his dumb brother and his overbearing father in the French countryside. Unlike the other rats Remy likes being around humans, has a keen sense of smell, and enjoys watching cooking shows. After an unfortunate occurrence in the farmhouse kitchen, reminiscent of that other great rat film The Secret of Nimh, the rats make their escape from a gassing of the farmhouse and Remy gets separated from his family, ala An American Tale. But Remy is no Fivel; he is a smart young rat whose interest draws him out of the sewer and into the heart of France to Gusteau’s restaurant. Gusteau is introduced as a character from old television shows and as a figment of Remy’s imagination as he eggs Remy on and watches his legacy of ‘anyone can cook’ devolve into a business selling second rate frozen burritos. A very American sort of endeavor if ever there was one.

Remy saves a young dish washer from losing his job and the two devise a way to work together so that Remy can indulge his interest in cooking and Linguini can get all of the credit and keep his job. It is a Cyrano deBergerac for the rat-tailed set. One of the interesting things about the film is that Remy is not a talking rat. Remy and Linguini communicate through biting and hair tugging. Remy can read and presumably understand Linguini but Linguini only hears rat squeaking when Remy speaks. It lends a bit more realism to a story that is after all grounded essentially in the real world of patrons and cooks and other people much more than Pixar’s previous films. If it weren’t, the animosity and racism that Remy feels with competitive chefs quite literally trying to stamp him out would be less effective. Remy is after all a rat, in a kitchen, which everyone knows is a somewhat gross proposition.

There is of course a bad guy, here the head chef Skinner, voiced by Ian Holm, whose interest in the restaurant and cooking itself are subject to his desire to make lots of money branding the Gusteau name. There is a second plot about Gusteau’s will and the rightful heir of the restaurant but all it really does is give the rat and his friend a foe and give Holm ample opportunities to rant with aplomb.

The rest of the vocal cast includes such luminaries as Brian Dennehy as Django, Remy’s father, Peter O’Toole as a vicious critic Anton Ego whose sharp criticism of Gusteau led to the restaurant’s decline and its founders eventual death. There is also Brad Garrett of Everybody Loves Raymond fame as the voice of the chef Gusteau and Janeane Garofalo as Linguini’s love interest Colette. Will Arnett, the ever present Pixar fixture John Ratzenberger, and even director Brad Bird himself round out the vocal cast of characters.

Ratatouille may seem highbrow and inaccessible to audiences but it is as clever and warmly rendered as any of the Pixar classics and is well worth repeat viewing. This time the human characters are integral to the story, not just a sideshow for the toys and monsters and so the film has a level of closeness to reality that is lacking in some of the other films. Director Brad Bird more than masters what could have been a dry topic of French haute cuisine giving life and character to the kitchen operations of the restaurant and real texture and spice to the creation of the dishes. Most importantly in Remy there is a warm character who embodies hope and drive and a can-do attitude that is endearing and uplifting as well as entertaining even if he is a rat.

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