The 100 Foot Journey

Due to some ambiguous circumstances, I got to spend a few days with my older brother who lives outside the United States. He lives and works in Oman, one of three Arab Sultanates in the entire world. Suffice it to say, our schedules and opportunities to spend any time together are somewhat felicitous.

During this short time together, my brother introduced to me and our mother, a genuinely wonderful film entitled, “The 100 foot Journey.”

First let me say, the film was beautifully photographed, with special attention to the food. The individual ingredients, the vegetables, the meat, the sauces and such were all wonderfully vivid, as almost to make one’s mouth water. The countrysides, the village and the skies, replete with amazing sunrises and sunsets illuminating the most tender scenes, were masterfully filmed with the highest quality there must be.

The film is a truly great mixture of drama, resistance to the forces of politics, the adroit combination comedy, and love story, in a culinary battle for the utmost Michilin Star rating for an established French fine dining enterprise that is a mere 100 feet apart from a brand new (to the village) Indian restaraunt.

The characters are strong, funny and above all else, adaptable to a changing world. The real personal journey begins when a master “cook” is found to be, by the “opposition,” culinary expert, to be a master chef. His true journey begins when the utterly matronly and severe owner of the long established French restareuant, hires him, and her life long dream of achieving a 2 star Michilin rating is realized. The two dining establishments are a mere 100 feet apart. Across a narrow village street. The real journey is the nascent chef’s intro duction to a much larger world, because of his amazing skills as a chef. He goes to Paris and cooks for the best of the best, and soon finds what truly lies in his own heart.

This is not a genuinely foreign film, it’s produced by Steven Spielberg and Oprah Winfrey, but everything about it has the charm and allure of a foreign film. It was released too early for our Oscar nominations, but if it were up to me, it would be a sure winner for more than one of those little gold plated guys named Oscar!