Why Ratatouille Is The Perfect Thanksgiving Movie
An already remarkable film that works as a celebration of food and deals with issues of family being grateful!
Thanksgiving is one of the most popular holidays in the United States, resulting in some of the busiest travel days as well as Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales. While the questionable origins seem problematic, the holiday still gathers families every year for food, togetherness, and merriment, but despite the popularity there’s almost no films that tackle the holiday. This is where I offer a new Thanksgiving an option: Ratatouille, the brilliant Pixar film about a rat in Paris who longs to be a chef. The film may not take place on the holiday or in the United States, but it perfectly encompasses much of what the holiday symbolizes save for the genocide of Native Americans.
Ratatouille stars Remy, a rat who is an outcast of his colony as he longs to be a chef, watching humans cook and teaching himself how to read cookbooks. He gets separated from the colony and winds up in Paris near the restaurant Gusteau’s, which belonged to a famed late-chef. Auguste Gusteau, a portly French man with a similar demeanor to Julia Child complete with a catchphrase “anyone can cook”, is manifested as a part of Remy’s subconscious, a modern Jiminy Cricket if you will. Remy meets the clumsy new staff member at Gusteau’s, Alfredo Linguini, and after learning he can work Linguini like a puppet, the two team up, bringing new notoriety to the restaurant. This ruins the plans of the now owner, Skinner, who wishes to capitalize on Gusteau’s likeness by turning him into a brand for microwaveable food items while also catching the eye of harsh food critic Antoine Ego.
As stated before, Remy is an outcast from his family, and this takes a toll on him in the beginning as he is stuck scavenging for food in the trash despite only wanting fresh food. Once separated he is granted an amount of liberation before they come into the picture again through his brother. Compelled to help his brother who is still scavenging, Remy steals food from the kitchen, only to have his brother repeatedly return with more and more rats. This puts Remy in a difficult spot of keeping his integrity and giving in to his family. Meanwhile, Linguini is confronted with the legacy of Gusteau after learning he is Gusteau’s son, thus inheriting the restaurant, ruining Skinner’s marketing plans, and grabbing unwanted attention. Linguini also has to deal with the fact that he needs Remy more than ever, but needs to take the credit, creating a predicament for him as well, leading to Remy’s bitterness which leads us to our next theme: gratitude.
Ratatouille handles gratitude in a different sense, reflecting on the absence of it, primarily by way of greed and selfishness. Remy may not be greedy, but he is made clearly upset by Linguini reluctantly soaking up whatever limelight is thrown on him, even though he is doing what he has always wanted to do. Along with that is Remy’s family’s, most importantly his brother’s, greed and gluttony. Once Linguini finds out Remy has been stealing, the two part for a brief moment of time. However the most direct portrayal of greed and ingratitude comes at the hands of Skinner. Skinner was the sous-chef of Gusteau, but rather than maintain the legacy, Skinner would rather cash out on Gusteau’s name. This involves not just the creation of caricature cut-outs of Gusteau to market various frozen foods, but also the withholding of Linguini’s ancestry from him while hoping to sabotage him. Once Linguini’s truth is revealed, Skinner loses everything. Instead of focusing on honing his talents or seeking other employment, Skinner becomes obsessed with taking down Gusteau’s, going so far as to attempt kidnapping Remy to force him to create food for him to sell.
Food is of course a constant in this film, showing the working lives of kitchen staff and a respect for the culinary arts. Three scenes in particular capture this the best. The first is when Remy is trying some foods together with his eyes closed as the background goes black until his mind explodes into a colorful synethesia-like symphony as he experiences the flavors. Later Remy tries explaining flavor profiles and how to experience taste to his brother. As his brother closes his eyes, the background goes dark again, only to be illuminated by the soft bursts of colorful lights that aren’t quite as brilliant as he tastes and focuses on the flavors of the items Remy hands him. It’s a testament to Remy’s refined palette and superb cooking abilities as well as an effective tool to show rather than just tell.
The final scene is the climactic moment when Ego takes his first bite of the dish Remy has made. The dish is of course ratatouille, dismissed in the movie as a peasant dish and a shocking choice for a critic who enjoys being harsh. Once Ego takes the first bite he is transported back to a childhood memory of his mom cooking for him after a bad day. Ego loves it and gives the restaurant a glowing review, losing all credibility once it is revealed Gusteau’s has rats in the kitchen. Still, he decides to invest in a new restaurant for Remy to cook in and thus ends the film.
Now to go back to Thanksgiving, having a few homemade dishes surrounded by family is typically what comes to mind. Remy finds resolution with his very different family by the end of this, and specializes in what seems to be a casual bistro type of cuisine. It wasn’t food that was created to impress that won over Ego; it was a dish that reminded him of his family and childhood. Ego even states in his review how he feels “the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so”. It didn’t need gold leaf or expensive foreign mushrooms to validate it, it was a simple, old-world type of dish consisting of garlic, tomato, and squashes. The same can be said for Thanksgiving meals. It’s the time and effort that is put into the cooking that makes a meal special; the memories that might be made in that moment, and the desire to create food not for self-importance, but for those who care. And so I propose a new Thanksgiving tradition of watching Ratatouille, a celebration of all types of cuisine, a tale showing the importance of family and how food can bring people together.