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Ratatouille

Written by Taryn Shick

Friday, 06 July 2007

Starring: (The voices of) Patton Oswalt, Lou Romano, Ian Holm, Janeane Garofalo, Peter O’Toole, Brad Garrett
Directed by: Brad Bird
Written by: Brad Bird, Jim Capobianco, Emily Cook, Kathy Greenberg & Jan Pinkava

Ratatouille is the latest Disney-Pixar animated feature. This one features a rat named Remy (Oswalt) who lives in Paris, France and aspires to be a chef. Remy uses his friend, Linguini (Romano), to try to achieve this. He discovers he can control Linguini by sitting under his chef’s hat and pulling his hair to make him move. Yes, it is totally silly. But it is a cartoon. And it works.
I love that animation keeps getting better and better. In Ratatouille , you can see the bristles of fur on the rats in amazing detail. It looks thick and tangible. It is truly astounding. The story line is great. What could be more absurd than a rat who wants to be a chef? The world of rats, dirty and typically disease-ridden, couldn’t be more opposite than the world of culinary arts where everything must be very clean and sanitary. But that is why it is so funny.
I think the film carries a good message about going for your dreams, no matter how crazy they might seem. Remy is encouraged by his idea of the ghost of Gusteau (Garrett), a famous chef whose restaurant Remy is ‘working’ in. The relationship between Remy and Gusteau has some of the most fun moments of the film. I enjoyed being startled a few times when the image of Gusteau would appear suddenly.

The characters are very well-defined and entertaining. Remy is adorable. Linguini is delightfully goofy. You get two villains, Skinner (Ian Holm), the head chef trying to find a reason to get rid of Linguini; and to a lesser degree, Anton Ego (Peter O’Toole), the super snooty food critic. I was shocked to learn that fellow chef and love interest of Linguini, Colette, is voiced by Janeane Garofalo. I didn’t recognize her voice at all. The cast does a great job with the voices and the characters.

I liked seeing rats portrayed positively. I think rats are cute and have been branded with a bad reputation that is not entirely accurate. Still, I hope that parents explain to kids that rats are not really friendly and approachable unless you see them in a pet store.

There were a lot of references to the rats stealing food and not working for it. I’m not really sure what the message was with that. I think the film might have been trying to say that you can’t get rewards without sacrifice. But trying to portray that using rats was just a bit odd. It’s not like rats can get jobs, so how else would they get food?

But it doesn’t detract from the overall entertainment of the film and the main message of achieving your dreams. I really enjoyed Ratatouille.

Grade: A-

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