(2007) A vegetable stew of Provence, served hot or cold, from the Pixar kitchen of the famous five-star Disney franchise, directed and co-written by Brad Bird. Remy the rat (voiced by Patton Oswalt), the Little Chef with a highly developed sense of taste and smell, usurps Mickey's crown of the kingdom with his command performance.

Fastidious - he perambulates on his hind legs to avoid touching what he eats with what he uses for locomotion - Remy refuses to consume what his father ("Food is fuel") and brother Emile are willing to put into their mouths: "If you are what you eat …," though he doesn't say it, "Garbage in, garbage out."

Acquainted from watching television with Auguste Gusteau (Brad Garrett), the most famous chef in France, Remy has learned how to cook and read Gusteau's book, Anyone Can Cook. Before he and his clan have to evacuate their home in the house of an old woman, who goes berserk with a shotgun when she sees Remy and Emile in her kitchen, the tv announcer reports Gusteau's death and the loss of two stars from his restaurant in Paris.

Separated from his family and clan, Remy with the help of Gusteau as the figment of his imagination ("A cook makes. A thief takes.") ends up in the chef's restaurant where he becomes the puppet master under the toque of Linguini (Lou Romano), the garbage boy, making him into an inspired chef. Linguini also happens to be Gusteau's only heir, unbeknownst to either the son or the father, who has left a will instructing that his restaurant become the property of his runt sous chef Skinner if no immediate relation can claim it. The only female chef in the restaurant, Colette (Janeane Garofalo), becomes Linguini's romantic interest.

Food critic Solene LeClair revives interest in the formerly popular eatery when she tastes Remy/Linguini's soup. Unappreciated and having to disguise his true identity, Remy struggles against the danger of being discovered by humans other than Linguini and with the demands made by his species to be what he is, not what he wants to be, while the boy attempts to deal with the responsibilities his new fame has given him from pretending to be what he isn't. Into the restaurant steps gastronome Anton Ego (Peter O'Toole) - thin because "If I don't love it, I don't swallow it" - whose review removed a star from the renowned restaurant just before Gusteau's demise. Bon appétit!

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Copyright © 2008 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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