Review: Ratatouille (2007)
When one discusses a Pixar film, the question usually isn’t whether it’s any good or not, but how good it is within the standards of the company’s impressive output. We all have our preferences. I know many that love Finding Nemo, and I don’t begrudge them that, but it’s not, despite Albert Brooks’ wonderful work, one of my favorites. Pixar at their absolute best is a three way tie between the Toy Story movies and The Incredibles, which some have rightly claimed to be the best superhero movie, period.
Brad Bird, the writer-director of The Iron Giant, The Incredibles and now Ratatouille, is as good as everyone thinks he is. He’s sort of a Ray Harryhausen of American animation, imbuing the genre with a respect, and an attention to detail that is seldom seen anywhere else. Yes, The Iron Giant is essentially E.T., but it was a new E.T. when we really needed it (Spielberg, though still interesting, and at times quite impressive, had lost that particular sensibility years ago.)
Ratatouille is a children’s film that explores a need for something despite overwhelming societal disapproval, and eventually gets around to telling us that we can have whatever we like if we work hard enough for it. Daring, I know. Ratatouille doesn’t have the unexpected thematic originality of The Incredibles (the shockingly un-pandering point that we as a society are content with mediocrity and threatened by anything else) but it, like The Iron Giant, is wonderful despite a more time tested (some less kind would say cliched) plot. Ratatouille is so beautiful you may find yourself melting like the film’s sort of villian (Peter O’Toole) and give in to its pleasures, its reliance on skill over gimmick, on character over breakneck, numbing, screw the mood pace.
The Peter O’ Toole character is a food critic, and its here that Ratatouille distinguishes itself in terms of plot mechanics. Of course, the critic, Anton Ego (love that) is redeemed, and rediscovers his love for his medium, but the film sneaks in a sly anti-critic commentary at the end that I wish it hadn’t saved for the last ten minutes. This is where Ratatouille could’ve broken apart from the usual you can do it pabulum, and, as well written and structured as the film is, I couldn’t help but wish the end were actually the starting point.
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