Even with the Accent,

‘Ratatouille" Is Great

© By Kevin Paquet, 2007

"Ratatouille" is the story of a man-rat duo pursuing an impossible dream in a city of unintelligible accents.

It is also the best movie I’ve reviewed all year—surprisingly, a film for all ages.

The 2007 showing for the computer animation studio now known as Disney-Pixar goes to prove that even if following your heart leads to disaster, at least it’s an interesting kind of disaster.

Remy (Patton Oswalt) is a rat living in the French countryside. His is part of a large rat clan living in the attic of an elderly woman’s house, where he watches his hero, Auguste Gusteau (Brad Garrett). While the rest of the pack scrounges through the garbage, Remy aspires to a higher culinary calling, which eventually gets him in trouble.

With the help of his brother, Emile (Peter Sohn), Remy attempts to cook a good meal over the house chimney on one of the reflectors of a TV antenna. I think that, of the small number of creatures that would have tried this in the first place, most would have given up after being struck by lightning. Not Remy, however, who tastes his creation and decides it needs saffron.

He and Emile sneak back inside. While there, Remy proudly points out Gusteau on TV (which, inexplicably, is still working), but is shocked when he sees that the clip of his hero is actually part of an obituary. Gusteau has died.

At that point, the old woman wakes up and, horrified at the rats, starts shooting at them. She accidentally brings the whole ceiling down, and the colony flees. Remy, lagging behind because of the cook book he’s stolen, gets separated and, against all odds, rides the storm drain all the way to Paris, where he ends up in the restaurant of the late Gusteau.

Enter Linguini, voiced by Lou Romano. Linguini has been sent to find a job at the restaurant by his late mother. I had a hard time understanding much of this, because the kitchen staff all talk very fast in very thick "French" accents, producing a noise that sounds like a heated argument between ducks. Linguini is hired as the garbage boy, but when a soup he makes (which is hastily improved upon by Remy, watching from the wings) turns out to be delicious, he is placed under the command of Colette (Janeane Garofalo), a woman with the charisma of a landmine.

This is not a perfect movie. The plot went into a skid a couple of times, and although the obvious villain (the evil chef) was easy to spot, I initially had a hard time scoping out the icy food critic, whose presence in the film initially baffled me. I’m also quite serious about the accents; I wish the cast members hadn’t tried so hard to sound French.

I’d probably need to see this movie again to really get some traction on the dialogue. But then again, that’s a pretty good excuse to see an excellent movie twice.

Everything about "Ratatouille" speaks with confidence and sincerity. This is not a wacky slapstick yukfest but something much better and more refined: a story of a talentless kid and a cultured rat working together to find their symbiotic place in the world.

To my surprise, the "talking animal" thing was easy to swallow in this tale—and the small flaws only emphasize the total success of the greater whole. Bonus points for the health inspector, the Vespa/rat chase sequence, and Gusteau, who teaches us that Anyone Can Cook. Kevin gives it five stars out of five.