Review: Ratatouille

The English Conversation Class/Circle that I help teach (or rather, moderate) recently voted to try watching a movie in English…without Japanese subtitles. Perhaps a bit of a mistake to choose Ratatouille, what with the French-accented tones that most of the characters spoke in (the rats excepted. Of course they’d sound American, huh?)

Remy is an unusual rat, one with an unusually good sense of smell. Not content with the scavenging that his family and colony members conduct (in accordance with their nature!), he regularly steals into the home over which they live to watch his favourite cooking show and experiment with all kinds of new flavours. One day, a little kitchen excursion (in which Remy learns that his favourite chef has passed away) ends with the colony being driving down through the sewers into Paris, the home of cooking and the restaurant of his favourite cook – Gustav’s. Urged on by a Gustav of his imagination, Remy saves errand boy Linguine by fixing an soup, winning acclaim from the customers that night. It so happens that Linguine cannot cook to save his life…thus presenting a chance for a rat to live his dream of becoming a cook. But with increasing complications and conflicting interests, how long can they hold up that facade?