Ratatouille

Production company strips are boring. What do I care if Amalgamated Media, Inc. produced the movie I'm about to see? Why should I watch its, and its fellow companies', animations when we could all just be getting on with the movie? What are they trying to do, build customer loyalty? "Boy, I sure do like those MGM movies. They're way better than Paramount's."

On second thought, there is one production company that has managed to build customer loyalty, and I don't mind sitting through its logo. When the Pixar animation flickers on the screen, I settle in, secure in the knowledge that I'm about to be entertained by people who care about the product they're putting onscreen. I may not be dazzled, but I can count on being well entertained, and I respect that.

RATATOUILLE, Pixar's latest, dazzles. Perhaps more importantly, it does so with an original story, excellent performances, and the kind of first-class animation we've come to expect from the folks with the desktop lamps. Here's the setup: Remy just wants to cook. He has extraordinary senses of smell and taste, he intuitively understands food, and he studies the works of Gusteau, the famous Parisian chef who declares that "Anyone can cook!" There's a problem, of course: Remy is too far down the social ladder to land a job at a restaurant, much less a slot in culinary school. In fact, he's a rat: he can't even get in the kitchen.

I like the idea of using a rat instead of a mouse. In the popular imagination, rats are evil while mice are cute. We in the audience shudder when we see a (flock? herd?) bunch of rats skittering across a floor, and the movie accepts that and works with it, artfully reproducing the biomechanics of rat movement (ok, there's some anthropomorphization, but that's to be expected). By accepting Remy's rat-ness, it challenges us to do what those in the film must learn to do: get over it and get on with the realization that this rat has a lot to offer. "Those in the film" includes Remy's rat family, which includes the disapproving father who doesn't understand why his son can't just eat garbage like everyone else; Linguini, the hapless janitor who stumbles into an alliance with the little chef; and, perhaps most dauntingly, the Paris gastronomical world. Further, I like the idea of setting an animated film in the world of food. Perhaps its because I recently saw and loved MOSTLY MARTHA; perhaps it's because I recently had relatives in for a visit, relatives who dragged my wife all over town looking for just the right lemon grater for our kitchen; perhaps it's because I've had a few meals in my life that have brought tears to my eyes (Aside: those meals were at Cantina Vecchia il Baroni and La Botta). Whatever the reasons, this is new territory for family pictures, it isn't intuitively obvious that kids would dig it, and I applaud Pixar's courage in going there.

Patton Oswalt, who did not impress me in THE COMEDIANS OF COMEDY, does fine work here as Remy, as do the rest of the cast of people whose names I recognize, but whose voices I did not. Particularly surprising was Peter O'Toole as cadaverous food critic Anton Ego: during this film, I though, "Wow. Jeremy Irons is doing great work here." O'Toole nails that Ironsesque menace and takes it to an entirely different level and, when his character develops, that development feels both organic and earned.

As for the animation, well, it's Pixar. You get about what you'd expect, which is remarkable excellence and attention to detail.

I saw RATAOUILLE in a theater filled with young children and their families. The film captivated the entire audience, who applauded the gorgeous final shot. That's saying a lot about a movie about rats in the kitchen, and it's yet another feather in the cap of Pixar and director Brad Bird. RATATOUILLE is destined to find a place in the heart - and on the shelf - of many, many people, and I'm one of them.

What a delight.