If you haven’t seen it since you were a kid, rewatch it. You’ll realize that you spent your childhood laughing at the rat running across the ceiling, only to grow up and cry at the critic finding his soul.
It is an incredibly subversive message for 2007 (and frankly, for today). Ratatouille argues that talent is not the property of the elite. It is a fluke of nature that can appear in the most unlikely, unwanted places. Even if you mute the sound, the film is a feast. The way light bounces off a demi-glace. The sound of a perfectly seared steak. The steam rising from a bowl of soup in a cold attic. Pixar’s animators spent months studying the physics of simmering liquids and the texture of cracked pepper.
5/5 stars (or should I say, 5/5 Eiffel Towers). "Surprise me." — Anton Ego ratatouille.2007
If you only remember Ratatouille as "the cute movie where a rat cooks food," please, pull up a chair. We need to talk.
Through a chaotic partnership (Remy hides under Linguini’s toque and pulls his hair like puppet strings), they produce the best food Paris has seen in years. But standing in their way is Anton Ego, a skeletal food critic whose reviews can shutter a restaurant overnight. Let’s talk about the villain. Most animated movies give you a cackling tyrant or a jealous rival. Ratatouille gives you a thin-lipped, black-clad intellectual who types on a coffin-shaped laptop. If you haven’t seen it since you were a kid, rewatch it
If you didn’t tear up when Ego puts down his pen and smiles, you might be a robot. The slogan of the film is famously misunderstood. When Gusteau says, "Anyone can cook," he doesn’t mean that everyone will be a great chef. He means that a great chef can come from anywhere .
Title: Ratatouille Year: 2007 Director: Brad Bird Distributor: Pixar Animation Studios / Walt Disney Pictures Ratatouille argues that talent is not the property
His subsequent review is the most beautiful monologue ever written into an animated film: "In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little, yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment... But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the new."