Ratatouille - My thoughts

Warning! Some *very* small spoilers for Incredibles and Ratatouille...



Warmth - it's the one word that all of Brad Bird's movies (Iron Giant, Incredibles, and now, Ratatouille) have in common. He has an easiness about his writing that invites warmth without sappiness, and always keeps the primary themes of the stories front and center without losing himself in the usual writer's trap of sugar-coating everything until the story has lost any edge it had to begin with.

In the case of The Incredibles, Brad Bird tackled the clichés of the superhero genre with a dash of Nietzschean philosophy, sprinkled with a touch of family drama. The struggle of the protagonists was always front and center, and their problems as superheroes and as simple members of a nuclear family were interwoven so skillfully that the audience is not forced to over-focus on one aspect or the other - they are meant to take in the characters as wholes, rather than a sum of various clichéd parts. The marital issues the Parrs are faced with are never toned down as Mr. Incredible deals with his mid-life crisis (to an almost pitiful level at times) and Elastigirl is torn in agony over the question of her husband's fidelity. These are meant to be real people. This strong element of reality, despite the surreal context, is what helps keep the movie relevant and interesting to the audience.

Ratatouille is no different. The concept is absurd - a rat who aspires to be something more... a cook, no less! He has grandiose dreams of someday overcoming the trash-delving habits of his brethren and enjoying true cuisine. In the hands of any other writer or director, this would likely have turned into any other saccharine-sweet child's flick, full of cheap gags and not-so-subtle innuendo jokes aimed to keep the parents entertained. While there are certainly plenty of caricatures portrayed in the movie, the focus is never on any single shtick. There is no Robin Williams to keep the children over-stimulated (I love the guy as a comedian, though). Instead, we get a wonderful examination of the art and joy of cooking and of chasing one's dreams. The movie is never dumbed down and never resorts to cheap pop-culture references instead of good writing. While the story operates on multiple levels, there is no distinct "child level" and "parent level" - it is all one and the same, something completely unique to Brad Bird and Pixar these days.

And the animation! There is simply no other company in the entire industry that comes within miles of Pixar's level of craft. From their technological accomplishments (oh god, the lighting!) to their subtlety in presentation, every moment of the movie is visually perfect. Painstaking care has been poured into everything from the selection of colors for each scene to eerily realistic textures used on the foods. Above and beyond the simple visual appeal of the CG, Pixar's animators have once again proven that nobody is anywhere near them. Despite Shrek's monetary success, their characters remain wooden and stiff. Pixar has managed to make CG truly organic.

At the movie's climax, there is a scene that comes so suddenly and so elegantly that for anyone who has ever had a meal so beautiful, so *perfect* that it has brought tears to your eyes will have trouble fighting back tears once again. You will feel a rush that will call to mind every memorable meal you have had and will cause tears to well up not out of sadness or out of joy, but simply out of release - as if you yourself had been the one to take the bite out of that perfect meal. But, then again, that may be because I simply enjoy my food - and Brad Bird - a little too much.