In one of Paris' finest restaurants, Remy, a determined young rat, dreams of becoming a renowned French chef. Torn between his family's wishes and his true calling. Remy and his pal Linguini set in...
“Ratatouille” is one of the most ironic movies ever made: it’s about a rat that cooks in haute cuisine— it’s hard to come up with a stronger dissonance than that, but somehow, someway, Pixar makes it work wonderfully. “Ratatouille” is arguably the most underrated animated movie of all time.
The first thing that I noticed as I rewatched this is how it never lulls, it’s always moving forward with the plot. The story becomes quite dense, but it never feels like it is painfully dragging — there is always a forward pulse that gives it an effortless flow. And this is good because it stops to try and logically explain the irony of what you’re watching, you have to go along with it because the movie itself does so naturally. It’s saying, “yes, this rat can cook, but don’t think about why that is, just admire him and watch what happens”. Unlike most movies would, this doesn’t try to give some boggy explanation for Remy’s quirk. It’s the perfect style for such a strange concept.
This is undeniably the most mature Pixar movie; I honestly don’t see how a 5 year-old would thoroughly appreciate something so bizarre as a rodent cooking stew. The subject is so drastically different from any other children’s movie, and no character or moment is ever watered-down in the slightest. Even the food critic, Anton Ego (Peter O’Toole), speaks with all the pompous vocabulary of a real-life snobby critic; strange enough, there isn’t even a character to lighten the mood with comic relief (you’d expect it to be the chubby brother, Emile, but it never is), all the comedy mainly comes from the crazy situations we find ourselves watching. Still, the funniest play that always gets me is how a character gets embarrassingly drunk in the middle of a kid’s movie. Gotta love Pixar.
Pixar loves to put outward displays of the conflicts that are going on inside the protagonist, in this case it’s how Remy (Patton Oswalt) is torn between going to the restaurant or underground. That’s the main conflict within Remy: will he stay with Linguini or his family? will he try to be a human since he doesn’t seem to be a normal rat? He says himself that he’s always pretending to be something he isn’t; this struggle is made tangible as we see him actually go back and forth between the two alternatives until he finally comes to the powerful realization that he does not need to pretend to be something he isn’t — he does not need to put on airs to please others. Remy’s echoing declaration, “Because I’m a cook!”, is his triumphant conclusion as he defiantly scurries back to the restaurant, where he knows he belongs.
“Ratatouille” is an absolute joy to watch because you’re never bored and always in wonder at the story; despite having seen it countless times, the magic of scenes like Remy cooking the Ratatouille, while Michael Giacchino’s luscious score warmly hugs the scene tight, is still utterly entrancing. My favorite scene to rewatch is when Ego tastes the Ratatouille and is visibly, as he admits later, “rocked to the core”. The sheer disbelief/elation on his face as he is reminded of his humble beginnings — what food actually means to him — is one of the most powerful moments in all of animation (quickly followed up by one of the most hilarious: Chef Skinner tasting the dish himself and clenching the tablecloth in reluctant denial of its brilliance). I’m just gonna link it below so you can relive this absolute beauty of a scene.
Pixar works wonders through animation, and “Ratatouille”, probably their most overlooked movie among the bigger names, is no less a gem than all of these. It is a dignified film despite the grotesque origins of the protagonist, carrying an elegant maturity about itself that follows until the last cursive letters fade out.
