SPOILERS: This article contains spoilers for Disney's Ratatouille, if you haven't seen it go watch it then come back to this blog post.
We all know Disney/Pixar's triumphant near work of art films. Films like Up, Coco, Toy Story, and The Incredibles, just to name a few. My personal favorite out of these movies is Ratatouille.
Ratatouille came out in 2007 and surprisingly I didn't see it until this year (over 10 years past its release), and happily it lived up to the hype I had heard about it. I knew it was special as people were still talking and making jokes about it but I didn't really know why until I saw it. I LOVE this movie and the entire movie is made worth it for me because of one scene at the end of the film.
Let me set the scene for you; the entire kitchen staff has abandoned Alfredo in his moment of need, Anton Ego the renoundly harsh food critic is sitting right outside the kitchen doors waiting to judge the new food at Gusteau's restaurant, Remy and his rat clan come back to make the food for the entire restaurant and it's going great, Alfredo starts serving dishes, Colette comes back and they decide what they're going to make Ego to critique, Remy chooses Ratatouille. Everything that this movie has lead up to is the Ratatouille! Of course, he makes it beautifully and Alfredo serves it to Ego. Ego tastes it then this happens,
(0:00-0:50)
When I watched this for the first time, I cried.
I CRIED.
How can a movie about a rat chef make me cry?
This scene moved me in such a way and made me fall in love with the film as a whole. Anton Ego is seen as a 'bringer of death' throughout the films. His review kills Gusteau, his office is in the shape of a coffin, and for god sake he's shaped like a coffin too. The fact that a simple food can bring so much life back into him is incredible.
When he flashes back to his childhood I can only think of how much he misses his mother. He is very old in this movie (probably around 60-70) and his mother has probably passed away already. He misses her cooking and her being around, just like when he was a kid. So the fact that a single dish of food made by a rat can bring him back to a time he misses so dearly is moving. Absolutely moving.
If you haven't seen this movie, please go watch it. Understand the context behind Ego and why this is such a moving scene in the film. This movie also has a number of amazing other moments (one other which I might do another post about), so please check it out.
Thanks for reading!
HB
I like putting something funny at the ends of my posts so here's a Ratatouille meme I found that I cry laugh at:
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