Rat Cake, Rat Sorbet, Rat Pudding, or Strawberry Tart (original) (raw)

Ratatouille – I haven’t watched a Pixar movie in a while, but I do still intend to get to all of them someday. This one was a bit of departure in terms of style and such, but it had some of the same major themes, particularly the protagonist who wants to break away from his role in society and follow a dream. In this case, we have a rat named Remy who has an exceptional sense of flavor and desires to cook. His more conservative father is not too keen on the idea, partially because it would involve interacting with humans.

This is apparently based on an actual storefront window in Paris, too.
When Remy is separated from his colony while moving, however, he finds his way to the restaurant of his favorite chef, the late Auguste Gusteau. Here, he comes to an arrangement with Linguini, a young man who’s been hired to work in the kitchen because he’s the son of Gusteau’s lover, in which he pulls on Linguini’s hair to get him to perform the correct actions.

Remy also reveals documentation that proves Linguini is Gusteau’s son, hence the restaurant belongs to him rather than the greedy Chef Skinner, who tries to hatch a plot to bring down his old workplace.

Remy eventually finds and makes peace with his family, and a really harsh food critic turns out to be surprisingly accepting of a cooking rat. The restaurant is still closed down by the health inspector, but they’re able to open a new one where not only does Remy work in the kitchen, but there’s a hidden section on the roof just for rats. Beth and I both wondered if it would end with the general public finding out that rats can cook, but I guess that would be too much of a change to the status quo. It was a pretty good story, but there were some subplots that I don’t think were really developed. There’s a recurring bit about Skinner using Gusteau’s name and image to sell cheap frozen dinners. It’s funny and helps to indicate how greedy the character is, but it never goes much of anywhere.

The romance between Linguini and roast cook Colette Tatou, voiced by Janeane Garofalo, also comes out of nowhere, and only starts when Remy directs him to kiss her to stop him from revealing the rat’s presence. Colette initially intends to use pepper spray but decides she likes it, which is pretty awkward.

There’s a point made at the beginning that Remy usually only walks on his hind legs because he doesn’t want to handle food and walk with the same limbs, but the same isn’t true for any other rats, yet we’re presumably not supposed to think of that when he recruits the whole rat colony to help him out in the kitchen.

I do wonder if the filmmakers were aware of the similarity to The Muppets Take Manhattan. I’ve also written before about inconsistent accents in animated films, and here most of the humans have French accents except ones who presumably aren’t French, but the rats seem to have always lived in France and don’t have accents. Maybe that’s to highlight their place as a different society. I understand Patton Oswalt tried several different voices for Remy before being told to just use his normal speaking one. Sticking with the topic of characters standing out, while there are other gray rats in the colony, I believe Remy is the only one with a blue tint to his hair.

This entry was posted in Animals, Cartoons, Food, Humor, Revisiting Disney, VoVat Goes to the Movies and tagged accents, janeane garofalo, patton oswalt, pixar, ratatouille, rats, restaurants. Bookmark the permalink.