Ratatouille: How the Critics were Won

It’s unlikely anyone would have predicted that Pixar’s Ratatouille would end up the highest scoring film of 2007 on aggregate score site Metacritic.

In a strong year for critically-acclaimed titles it’s extraordinary that a resolutely mainstream, animated film about a rat who learns how to cook could top heavyweight contenders like No Country For Old Men and There Will Be Blood.

However, director Brad Bird’s moralistic comedy garnered a metascore of 96/ 100 based on a collated 37 reviews, beating all-comers for the top spot. The film’s enduring message — that while not everybody can succeed at something, those who can might come from anywhere — seems applicable.

While the story construction is competent, the characters nuanced and the animation show-stopping, I have a feeling that Peter O Toole’s Oscar-winning character, the food critic Anton Ego, played a big part in securing the high scores and positive feedback.

Anton Ego is a snooty British food writer working in Paris. He represents, I think, the essence of how critics like to think of themselves: educated, intelligent, discerning and, most of all, powerful within their chosen niche. One brisk recommendation from Ego’s pen is enough to heap success upon a new chef, with equally grave financial implications for any restaurant given a meticulous textual dressing down.

While Ego is presented as a generally unlikeable character, Bird positions him at the center of the drama. The thrust of the story points toward that moment at which the protagonist (up and coming rat chef Remy) cooks for Ego, in a bid to win his approval through hard work and focus. In this sense, the movie plays by the rules, flattering critics: they are the people for whom creatives work and it is their blessing that truly matters. So while the characterization of Ego says that he is a mean-spirited, cranky old bastard, the underlying message is that his opinion is everything; he is the father figure who must be impressed and wowed above all else.

Having suitably buttered up the movie critics by pivoting the plot on their profession, Bird then adds two suckerpunches to further win them over. Firstly, when Ego finally eats Remy the rat chef’s meal (the titular ratatouille dish) he is momentarily transported back to the house in which he grew up, remembering the warmth and comfort of his mother’s version of the recipe. We see then that critics never work out of a vacuum and are influenced and biased by their own human experiences, a revelation that makes Ego a far more likable character.

Secondly, when Ego eventually discovers that the cook of this momentous dish is none other than a rat, his reaction is one of acceptance and belief, not horror and incredulity. In the next morning’s paper, Ego writes this review of his experience at Remy’s restaurant:

“In many ways the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up themselves and their work for our judgment.

There are times when a critic truly risks something. And that is in the discovery and defense of the new. The world is often unkind to new talent, new creation; the new needs friends.”

It’s a wonderful and depreciating summary of the job of a reviewer which also throws down a subtle challenge to those critics watching the film. Dare you endorse Ratatouille in the way Ego has (literally)? Will you put your weight behind this creative enterprise, even when it’s mainstream, animated and ostensibly for children? Dare you? Can critical success really come from anywhere?

Ratatouille is a new thing, and blessing new things is risky because an audience may not agree with you (indeed, it’s telling that Ratatouille’s reader metascore is a less impressive 87). But it’s that challenge, combined with the pixel-perfect representation of a snooty critic with all of his hang-ups and humanity that made this the most critically-acclaimed film of 2007. Of that, I’m almost sure.