Om Puri and The Hundred Foot Journey

The last year or so took more than its fair share of talented people from the world of art and entertainment. Some got a lot of attention and deservedly so. When someone of Alan Rickman’s talent, David Bowie’s brilliance, or Carrie Fisher’s iconic status passes, it makes sense that many people remember them and pay tribute. Some talented people are perhaps less known but still deserve a moment to observe their departure. One such actor is Om Puri who died in early January of a heart attack at age 66. Puri is hardly a household name in the United States, but in his native India, he was an incredibly prolific actor who worked in comedy and drama, mainstream and independent film. From the time he began working as a professional actor in the 70s, with very few exceptions, he made at least a film a year, often as many as three or four per year. Of course, not many of his Indian films have made it to America, but he did have roles in several U.S. productions. His most recent Hollywood film was Lasse Hallstrom’s 2014 food fantasy, The Hundred Foot Journey. 

 The film is primarily the story of Hassan Kadam, a culinary wunderkind, who is being groomed by his father, played by Puri, to be the chef in the family restaurant. Tragedy strikes in India, forcing what’s left of the family to relocate to Europe. Their rattletrap van breaks down on the outskirts of a timelessly lovely French village and they are rescued by the most French Frenchwoman I've ever laid eyes on (played by Canadian actor Charlotte Le Bon). Turns out, she's a sous chef at the local classical French restaurant and is lovely and generous and kind and a future love interest for Hassan so obvious she could be spotted from the International Space Station.

Hassan's crafty, wise, cantankerous father decides to open their family restaurant right across the street (one hundred feet to be exact) from the French restaurant run by the beautiful and imperious Mdme. Mallory (Helen Mirren). Being the snootiest woman on the planet, she, of course, is appalled by their food, their music, their customs, and particularly by Papa's hucksterish business tactics. Sabotage, cultural misunderstandings, blossoming romance, and lots and lots of beautiful food footage ensue. It is a cross between foodie wish fulfillment and plain ol' grown-up fantasy.

I'm not always a fan of Lasse Hallstrom's movies. Often, they're nothing more than pretty people in pretty places doing pretty things and never getting a hair out of place or ever moving out of the perfect lighting. The actors always look like J. Crew models, the setting is always quaint and picturesque, and the light is always, always golden. His movies are often like postcards - lovely to look at but not really moving in any real way.

The Hundred Foot Journey, however, rather than cloying, is actually charming, and its power comes from the weapons-grade charisma of its actors, particularly Puri. As you might expect, romance begins to form between his character and Helen Mirren’s Mdme. Mallory. Mirren is one of our most compelling, intelligent, and seductive actors, and yet Puri matches her step for step. One might look at photos of the two actors side by side and find it hard to believe them as a romantic couple, but thanks to the skill and humanity of both actors, their match is absolutely convincing. Rather than relying on a traditional pretty face, Om Puri had a magnetism, a gravity, and a keen, watchful intelligence to his work. He, as much as any other actor in this surprisingly lovely little film, draws you in and enchants viewers and makes the movie as satisfying as a good meal.

True to his work ethic, Puri died while in the middle of shooting a new movie, his eighteenth since completing The Hundred Foot Journey in 2014. He died doing what he loved and what he was clearly good at doing. Even though he’s gone, you can check out The Hundred Foot Journey tonight and feast on his performance again.

La La Land

Damien Chazelle’s movie La La Land loves a lot of things. It loves classical Hollywood – its history and icons, its landmarks and those young dreamers who want to be part of it. It loves jazz music and people who care about it. It loves bright primary colors and the radiant California sun burnishing everything under it. It loves remarkably long tracking shots that follow actors’ dance numbers up and down L.A. freeways, hillsides, bungalows, and bars. It loves Emma Stone’s gargantuan, almost cartoonish eyes, glittering with tears. It’s a movie with a lot of love for a lot of things, and Hollywood loves it right back. Recently, it won seven Golden Globes, a record number of wins for any single film in that award’s history. Though I always stay away from reviews of any film I plan on seeing, it’s been impossible to not hear the swooning, almost universal praise and accolades for La La Land.

It is a completely straightforward, unapologetic, sincere break-into-song, dance-in-the-streets original movie musical. It’s not a jukebox musical or an adaptation of a book or Broadway show, nor is it a winking “Dude, isn’t it, like, so retro that we’re, like, dancing?” production of self-awareness. It is the story of Mia, played by Emma Stone, an aspiring actress, and Sebastian, a frustrated jazz musician played by Ryan Gosling, who meet, fall in love, and struggle against the backdrop of 21^st century Hollywood. For the first thirty minutes or so, it comes across as a standard meet-cute romantic comedy only with songs and sparkling cinematography. Having heard all the praise for the film, contrarian that I am, I was fully prepared to dislike it. However, despite my best efforts, I could not. Somewhere around the planetarium sequence, where Mia and Sebastian wordlessly dance and literally float around the art deco Griffith Observatory, it became clear both how committed the film was to its vision of an unabashed musical love story and how much I was enjoying it.

It’s odd because neither Stone nor Gosling are particularly strong singers. They’re both passable, workmanlike dancers, and the music, while lovely, lacks any real showstopper songs. No one element stands out as the main reason why the film is so pleasurable. The trick, I think, is that every element accrues over the course of the film. The performances, the camera work and editing, the setting, the story, the music, the choreography, the careful but still organic arrangement of every element visible on the screen – all of it adds up to a total picture of what’s possible with all the tools at film’s disposal.

All of the film’s technical precision and ambition combine to tell a story about the frictions and collisions of pursuing love and one’s dreams at the same time. Mia and Seb encourage and challenge each other as he pursues his goal of opening a jazz night club and she tries writing her own one-woman show as a way of becoming a successful actress. At the same time, they also let each other down and the film shows just how hard it can be to choose between what you love and who you love.

Much has been made of the ending, which I won’t give away here. I will say that Mia gets an opportunity to go away to Paris for a movie that clearly has the potential to be her big break, and that the two of them have to decide what they are going to do about it as a couple. Beginning from the scene in which the two of them sit and discuss their options with the rush of LA traffic in the background, the final fifteen minutes of the movie are among the most beautiful and moving I’ve seen. Paying tribute to Gene Kelly’s An American in Paris in particular, La La Land goes full Hollywood musical as it uses an old fashioned dream sequence to explore the destinies of its two protagonists. It is lovely and heartbreaking in every good way. You should see it.

Ten Movies in Four Minutes

Movie watching over the holidays is usually a mixed bag. You go to the theater a few times, you watch a few old favorites on streaming, you catch up on movies you meant to see on the big screen but didn’t, and maybe, if you’re like me, you even break down and go to the video store because you’re tired of endlessly clicking around on Netflix. This holiday break, I watched ten movies from start to finish and today I would like to set a Moviehouse record and review all ten of them in the next three and half minutes. Beware there are some spoilers ahead.

Rouge One: A Star Wars Story – This put the war in Star Wars and is basically a combat heist film. It’s an Easter egg strewn wonderland for nerds who know who Gold Leader and Grand Moff Tarkin are. Director Gareth Edwards is great with images and produces some really striking grand scale pictures, but he’s terrible with character and most of those featured in the movie woefully underdeveloped. There’s no chance of them ever being developed any further because everyone dies.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them – This is a different kind of prequel, one where there were almost no expectations. Unlike Rogue One, it’s not sandwiched between two trilogies and therefore has more freedom to be its own thing. Edie Redmayne’s performance is generally ticky and off-putting, but Katherine Waterston and Alison Sudol are so charming as the Goldstein sisters, I would watch them read from a Muggle phone book.

Spectre – I find it interesting that director Sam Mendes shoots what is essentially a popcorn action flick like it’s the most serious of art house films. The movie looks great, and the combination of the serious and the silly has always worked well for the franchise. Making Bond supervillain Blofeld 007’s jealous adoptive brother seemed like too much of a stretch. I appreciate Mendes trying to give the spy franchise some heft, but c’mon.

Chinatown – directed by Roman Polanski and released in 1974, this remains one of the greatest neo-noirs ever made. Jack Nicholson’s slightly reptilian performance as private investigator Jake Gittes is vital and feels as contemporary as the day it was made. Even though the film takes place in glossy, gorgeous pre-war Los Angeles, it never feels like a period picture.

What About Bob? There are only two kinds of people in this world: those who like this excruciating black comedy about a patient hounding his psychiatrist on vacation and those who do not. My wife loves it.

The Angry Birds Movie – This one is a bit of a stretch. I watched it from the kitchen while I was baking Christmas cookies. My 7 year old picked it. Despite these limitations, I feel I can safely say it’s garbage and no one ever needs to watch it.

Hercules – Directed by professional frat boy Bret Ratner and starring Dwayne the Rock Johnson, this 2014 release honestly wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Johnson proves once again he has leading man charisma. Ratner managed not to ruin everything.

Sing – You wouldn’t think Matthew Mcaunghey would be perfect as a koala bear, but he kind of is. This movie, similar to but not as good as Zootopia, still makes the most of its jukebox musical structure and is the best thing Illumination studios has done yet. The carwash sequence made me giggle for ten minutes.

Sully – This managed to produce a lot of drama out of a real-life event that ended really happily. Clint Eastwood’s direction is lean and economical as usual. It’s good but it’s also 96 minutes of Tom Hanks being really grim.

In the Heart of the Sea – The last film I saw was Ron Howard’s sea epic about the story that inspired Moby Dick. It’s got a nice cast and a big budget and was utterly pedestrian and boring. Avoid it like everyone else did.

Whew.