What does
it mean to create? What does it mean to critique? These are two questions I
didn’t expect to hear voiced in an animated children’s film about a French rat.
But then,
Brad Bird is the man when it comes to upending expectations.
Remy is a
country rat with an unusually acute sense of smell. While this gift leads him
to become a food connoisseur, his more practical family employ him to be the
Poison Detector. Remy, on the other hand, has other ideas. Inspired by a
cookbook entitled “Anyone Can Cook,” he begins on a gourmet career that will
lead him to the very heart of Paris. There, he makes friends with an awkward
garbage boy named Linguini, and using this human companion, makes a splash in
the culinary world.
Ratatouille manages to
avoid the majority of animal-film clichés. Remy is chipper and positive, but he
is also intelligent and complex; Linguini has a life beyond just being the
Faithful Master. It avoids cuteness, and though there’s a brief anti-cruelty-to-animals
moment, it sidesteps more heavy-handed commentary, such as the anti-gun theme
in Bird’s earlier film The Iron Giant.
The animation is interesting and artistic, creating a beautiful, atmospheric
vision of Paris. The cast is almost devoid of caricatures, and the major one I
remember is offset by development from a parallel character.
