Mixing menus

“The Hundred-Foot Journey”

3 stars

Rated PG

122 minutes

Drama

Starring: Helen Mirren, Om Puri, Manish Dayal

The foodie-romance genre has been oddly absent from American cinema lately. It’s been seven long years since “Ratatouille” (2007) reminded audiences about their taste buds. Even then, that was an animated kids’ movie that arrived the same year that Catherine Zeta-Jones bumped uglies with Aaron Eckhart in a pleasing little food flick entitled “No Reservations.”

Any short list of foodie-movies is sure to contain Lasse Hallström’s charming filmic appetizer “Chocolat” (2000), in which Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp awaken each other’s passions in a small French village where Binoche’s character opens a chocolate shop. Yum.

Hallström presents beautiful compositions that lend themselves to mouth-watering depictions of cuisine — in this case, from India and France. Exotic spices from India do indeed harmonize with traditional French dishes on the screen. As the saying goes, “you can almost taste it.”

Even if its romantic tension gets muddled, and the film’s pacing and editing go out the window in the third act, “The Hundred-Foot Journey” manages to connect its head, heart and stomach via solid ensemble performances, led by reliable pros Helen Mirren and Om Puri. Still, lust gets short shrift amid a competition that develops between the story’s young pair of cooking lovers.

After escaping tragedy in Mumbai, Hassan Kadam (Manish Dayal) and his family realize their dream of recreating their deceased mother’s highly revered cooking. The family opens an Indian restaurant in a quaint French village — the kind you see on postcards. When it comes to preparing familiar or unacquainted dishes, Hassan is a natural in the kitchen.

French-local Marguerite earns a place in Hassan’s heart and stomach. Hassan wants Marguerite to teach him about French cuisine. It doesn’t hurt that newcomer Charlotte Le Bon has an adorable overbite and heartbreaking eyes. Marguerite’s cooking isn’t bad either, but she isn’t as facile as Hassan at interpreting and elevating traditional dishes. Herein springs the chefs’ competition that variously derails the groovy attraction between Manish Dayal and Charlotte Le Bon — however compelling the couple is on-screen together. Both Dayal and Le Bon give inspired performances worthy of promising futures.

Helen Mirren’s Madame Mallory lords over her restaurant’s coveted two Michelin Stars as if they were her children. Every day in her kitchen is a learning clinic for her more-than-willing staff. The imperious Lady Mallory takes great umbrage toward the rival restaurant’s threat to her closely guarded establishment. She sabotages the Kadam family’s restaurant with a multi-pronged attack.

You’ll get a sensory charge from Lasse Hallström’s signature visual treatment of delicious plates, bowls and pans of beautiful dishes made of fresh ingredients. Still, the film could have worked better if Knight would have stuck to a simpler formula. Romance, sex and food go together like a knife, fork and spoon. The author’s stretch to make a bland political statement, while conforming to the demands of a “PG-rating,” left no room for the “sex” part of the equation. For that kind of thing, check out Fina Torres’s “Woman on Top” (2000), starring Penélope Cruz as a Brazilian chef who moves to San Francisco. Hot, hot, hot. CV

Cole Smithey — The Smartest Film Critic in the World — has covered every aspect of world cinema since 1997. His reviews and video essays are archived online at www.ColeSmithey.com.