Hundred-Foot Journey, The

image for Hundred-Foot Journey, The

Short takes

Not recommended under 11; parental guidance recommended 11-13 (Lacks interest for young children; Themes; Violence)

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This topic contains:

  • overall comments and recommendations
  • details of classification and consumer advice lines for Hundred-Foot Journey, The
  • a review of Hundred-Foot Journey, The completed by the Australian Council on Children and the Media (ACCM) on 5 August 2014.

Overall comments and recommendations

Children under 11 Not recommended due to lack of interest, themes and violence
Children aged 11 to 13 Parental guidance recommended due to themes and violence.
Children aged 13 and over OK for this age group

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Australian Government Classification Board and the associated consumer advice lines. Other classification advice (OC) is provided where the Australian film classification is not available.

Name of movie: Hundred-Foot Journey, The
Classification: PG
Consumer advice lines: Mild themes and infrequent coarse language
Length: 122 minutes

ACCM review

This review of the movie contains the following information:

A synopsis of the story

Papa Kadam (Om Puri), after losing his wife and the family restaurant to a devastating fire, decides to leave his home in Mumbai and take his family to seek greener pastures in the Europe.  While travelling across Europe, Papa Kadam stumbles across a dilapidated restaurant in the south of France and decides it will make the perfect venue for the new Kadam family restaurant, Maison Mumbai.

Unfortunately for Papa Kadam, one hundred feet across the road is the French restaurant Le Saule Pleureur owned by the widow Madame Mallory (Helen Mirren). Madame Mallory is horrified at the thought of having a traditional Indian restaurant across the road from her Michelin star restaurant. Papa Kadam and Madame Mallory butt heads, with each trying to sabotage the other’s business.

Fortunately the fiery confrontation between the two restaurant owners begins to change when Papa Kadam’s son Hassan (Mannish Daval), who is a culinary genius, develops a romantic friendship with Madame Mallory’s sous-chef Marguerite (Charlotte Le Bon). Marguerite lends Hassan several French cook books which Hassan quickly masters and he then uses his newly acquired culinary skills in an attempt to win over the stony Madame Mallory.

It is only when local bigots set fire to Maison Mumbai in an attempt to run Papa Kadam and his family out of town, that Madame Mallory is outraged, has a change of heart, and begins forming a friendship with the Kadams.

Themesinfo

Children and adolescents may react adversely at different ages to themes of crime, suicide, drug and alcohol dependence, death, serious illness, family breakdown, death or separation from a parent, animal distress or cruelty to animals, children as victims, natural disasters and racism. Occasionally reviews may also signal themes that some parents may simply wish to know about.

Restaurants and cooking; bigotry and racism; death of a parent/family member

Use of violenceinfo

Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.

Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.

There is some violence in this movie including:

  • One scene depicts hundreds of people rioting in the streets of Mumbai. Rioters run into a restaurant and begin to smash tables and chairs. Tables are set on fire and the fire gets out of control, engulfing the entire restaurant in flames. We see the shadowy images of a woman trapped in the burning restaurant and engulfed in flames. Later we hear that the woman was killed.
  • A father and his adult son have a push and shove match over a phone, each trying to wrestle to phone from the others grasp. 
  • In relation to a mob of rioters a man says, “They came to slit the throats of our sons and wives”.
  • A man makes racist remarks about an Indian family, inferring that they should be violently dealt with.
  • Several men write racist and derogatory graffiti on the wall of a restaurant. They throw petrol bombs at the restaurant, setting it alight. A man is sprayed with burning fuel from the bombs and his hands and lower legs are covered in flames until a second man comes to his rescue and throws a pot of water over him. 

Material that may scare or disturb children

Under fiveinfo

Children under five are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes and scary visual images, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children aged under eight, including the following:

  • One scene depicts a restaurant kitchen where we see several dead and plucked chickens hanging from a pole.
  • In one scene we see a chef chopping up lobsters and cutting up bloody chunks of meat and we see severed fish heads on a kitchen bench. 

Aged five to eightinfo

Children aged five to eight will also be frightened by scary visual images and will also be disturbed by depictions of the death of a parent, a child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.

Children in this age group may also be disturbed by the above-mentioned scenes

Aged eight to thirteeninfo

Children aged eight to thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic threats and dangers, violence or threat of violence and / or stories in which children are hurt or threatened.

Children in this age group are unlikely to be disturbed by anything apart from the above-mentioned violence

Thirteen and overinfo

Children over the age of thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic physical harm or threats, molestation or sexual assault and / or threats from aliens or the occult.

Nothing of concern

Product placement

Citroen cars and mobile phones.

Sexual references

There are some sexual references in this movie, including:

  • In an airport a customs officer asks a young Indian woman if she is going to London for an arranged marriage.
  • In a bid to entice people into his restaurant a man tells a woman to smile to attract customers, saying that she has good teeth. She later smiles at a cyclist riding past, causing him to crash his bike.  
  • A news announcer makes reference to a man being very hot in the kitchen and popular with the ladies.

Nudity and sexual activity

There is some hugging, passionate dancing and kissing

Use of substances

There is some use of substances in this movie, including:

  • Several scenes of social drinking in restaurants
  • One scene depicts a man drinking wine and scotch; the man appears slightly intoxicated.

Coarse language

There is some mild coarse language in this movie, including:

  • Bloody; O god; for god’s sake; crazy French woman.

In a nutshell

The Hundred-Foot Journey, based on a novel by Richard C. Morais, is a romantic comedy about cultural opposites learning to coexist. The film targets older adolescents and adults, particularly those who like films about cooking and good food. The film has a great cast and spectacular views of the French countryside. The story is likely to lack interest for younger children and has some violent scenes that are quite scary.

The main messages from this movie are:

  • With some compromise, people from very different cultures can not only coexist but triumph together.
  • Racism is ugly and unacceptable and should be strongly opposed.
  • Home is wherever the family is.