Cultures and cuisines clash agreeably in “The Hundred-Foot Journey,’’ a mouth-watering and charming — if overlong — romantic comedy-drama about an immigrant family opening an Indian restaurant in a most unlikely location: the South of France.
When the restaurant they’ve long operated outside Mumbai is destroyed in a political uprising, the widowed Papa Kadam (Om Puri) moves his family to Europe, finally settling in a picturesque village in the Midi-Pyrénées region of France, where he rents a long-closed eatery.
This displeases Madame Mallory (Helen Mirren), the imperious widowed owner of the Michelin-starred Le Saule Pleureur (Weeping Willow), which sits directly across the street from the upstart Maison Mumbai.
Madame Mallory and Papa Kadam are quickly embroiled in a gastronomical war for ingredients, with each wining and dining the gourmand mayor (Michel Blanc) to gain a political advantage.
Meanwhile Kadam’s son and chef Hassan (Manish Dayal) is determined to master classical French cooking techniques and marry them to Indian cuisine. He finds an improbable ally — and maybe much more — in Madame’s spirited and beautiful sous chef (Charlotte Le Bon).
Madame may be a snob, but she also believes in “liberté, égalité, fraternité’’ — and finally calls a truce after a racist attack almost puts Maison Mumbai out of business.
She also learns, much to her surprise, that Hassan is such a talented chef that with his help, Le Saule Pleureur could win a coveted second Michelin star.
This film is based on a novel by Richard C. Morais that’s been described as a fusion of “Ratatouille’’ and “Slumdog Millionaire’’: Screenwriter Steven Knight of the gritty “Locke” created the original British version of “Who Wants To Be a Millionaire,’’ while Oscar-winning “Slumdog Millionaire’’ composer A.H. Rahman gives “The Hundred-Foot Journey” a lively score.
With a creative team that includes producers Steven Spielberg and Oprah Winfrey, this could have been as schmaltzy as director Lasse Halström’s previous exploration of culture clashes, the indigestible “Chocolat’’ from 2000. But it doesn’t, partly because of Linus Sandgren’s food-porn cinematography.
There’s no reason this film needed to run over two hours, and it bogs down when Hassan takes a job at a fancy Paris restaurant specializing in molecular cuisine (a phenomenon treated with far less respect in the recent French film “Le Chef’’). Even so, “The Hundred-Foot Journey’’ manages to be a satisfying meal, if not quite a feast, for famished adult audiences. Its winning ingredients? The astringent performances of Mirren and the veteran Indian actor Puri (“East Is East’’), whose battling characters may end up sharing more than a passion for food.