Ratatouille

Cafe Society
101

That’s not a twist ending. A twist ending is an ending that makes you re-evaluate everthing that has gone before in the light of new evidence that radically alters the meaning of those scenes. A twist ending would be something like finding out that Remy is just a regular rat, and all the stuff about him being a cook was Linguini’s hallucination. This was just a movie that ended in a way you didn’t expect.

Well, it’s not entirely clear what the situation is at the end of the movie, I’ll give you that. Did it become public knowledge that Remy is a gourmet chef, or did it simply become public knowledge that the kitchen at Gusteau’s was swarming with vermin? If it’s the latter, then there’s no real problem. Remy, Linguini, Anton, and Collette simply open up a quiet little restaurant, do what they love, and nobody is the wiser. Skinner already got Gusteau’s shut down, so he may be satisfied that he’s got his revenge, and not pursue the matter any further, and that’s the end of things. Everyone lives happily ever after.

The other option is that it becomes public knowledge that Remy can cook. Certainly, the health inspector and Skinner both have some pretty unusual stories about rodent behavior to tell. Gusteau’s gets closed down for gross violations of the public health code in the immediate aftermath of the revelation, but in the months afterwards, the novelty of Remy’s abilities makes it possible for Anton and Linguini to cut a deal with the health department to make an exception for Remy, and the restaurant becomes known as the place with the gourmet rat. The rodent cafe and little bronze ladder attached to the kitchen door that Remy stands on at the very end seems to speak to this scenario, and it ties in with one of the movie’s themes of personal honesty and progressive social change.

I don’t think it’s unusual for a person to want recognition for his work. Remy makes one big mistake at the end of the second act, when he lets his family into the restaurant to rob the place, but the actual public reveal of his role is entirely up to Linguini. He’s the one who spills the beans to the kitchen staff, and he’s the one who ultimatly refuses to take credit for the meal in Anton’s review. Plus, the over-riding theme of the entire movie is being true to yourself, so at some point, Remy has to reveal that he’s the one doing all the cooking, or the film would sabotage it’s own message. Plus, while it would be refreshing if the movie had gone ahead and endorsed lying and deception as viable strategies for success, that’s asking a bit much from a children’s film.

The easiest and most obvious explanation is that he didn’t mention the bits about super intelligent rats when he made his report. He just said there were a lot of rats in the kitchen, and that was enough to shut the place down. He doesn’t have to say anything about being tied up. The alternative is that Remy and Linguini have decided to be completely open about what Remy can do, so when the inspector makes his report (supported by Skinner, who was tied up next to him) they don’t try to deny it.

As for the point, it was an effective way of ratcheting up the tension of the final scene. It was a great sight gag: I think the shot of the inspector walking into the kitchen and seeing all the rats got some of the biggest laughs out of the entire film. It tied Skinner, the movie’s villain, into the climactic action, instead of just leaving him twisting in the breeze. And it cemented the theme of self-sacrifice: Linguini gives up his restaurant because it’s important to him that his friend receive the credit he deserves, just as Anton sacrifices his reputation as a food critic to endorse an artist whom he admires.

102

Another possible explanation is that Remy only cooked for Anton Ego. We saw Collette telling Remy it was time to get to work, and we saw him prepare Ego’s meal, but when that meal was served, it looked to me like many of the other customers were already eating — meals probably prepared by Collette.

Meanwhile the rats appeared to have their own little restaurant in the ceiling, and Remy probably spent most of his time cooking for them.

On another note, I’m quite surprised that nobody here is up in arms over the rather un-PC line where Collette tells the reporters, "I hate to be rude, but, we’re French! :smiley: "

103

Yes, the movie ended with a twist. Hence, “twist ending.” Where are you getting your definition of “twist ending” from? I believe it is excessively specific to the point of inaccuracy.

Except practically none of this is true. The monkey-boy’s still twisting in the breeze. How does he react to the news that Gusteau’s is shut down? We don’t even know-- we may presume that he is delighted, but for all practical purposes he evaporates from the movie after he makes that last phone call. (Of course Pixar may be planning a re-release of the final reel at the end of the summer with funny “outtakes” during the end credits, during which monkey-boy’s fate is made clear; but that’s hardly fair to the story.) It doesn’t give that character any closure, just leaves another loose end dangling.

And Linguini didn’t “give up” the restaurant, it was taken away from him. I didn’t get any sense that he would have felt obliged to call the health inspector and (ahem) rat himself out if the guy hadn’t shown up unexpectedly at the worst possible time. Similarly, the critic didn’t intentionally sacrifice his reputation either. In fact he deliberately obscured the identity of the chef in his article so that he wouldn’t have to tell a direct lie. There was no more “self-sacrifice” than if the restaurant had abruptly burned down at the end.

It was indeed a funny sight gag; but I don’t think that Gusteau’s needed to be closed for the sake of that one gag, especially when there were so many ways around it. Maybe that was Pixar’s token nod to the family-friendly sentiment that lying ultimately has consequences. But thrown in like that at the end of an entire movie revolving around the comedy of elaborate deception, it was a weirdly jarring note-- especially since they ran right past it to the happy ending: “And so, Gusteau’s went out of business! But nobody cared, and everyone lived happily ever after! Goodnight! Drive safe!”

104

I have to agree with Miller here. Ocean’s Eleven and The Sixth Sense are examples of movies with “twist” endings. Ratatouille is not (IMHO).

105

I’ll probably read this thread more thoroughly on Monday, but I saw the movie just now and loved it. I loved the rat best of all though.

106

:confused: Well, that was a weird edit. Let me try that again… Anyway:

Well, it wasn’t actually in the movie, but I like your version.

I disagree that being true to yourself necessarily includes public credit. Remy was initially torn because he dearly wanted to cook, but was prevented by the expectations of both humans and rats about how a rat should live: rats shouldn’t interact with humans, rats shouldn’t be in the kitchen, it is the lot of rats in life to steal their food, etc. But he managed to escape all of that and forge a new life for himself in the kitchen, working with humans (or a human, at least, who accepted him), and cooking. He was being true to himself already. I don’t think his desire for public acclaim really added anything to the “rats and humans should learn to coexist” subplot (or whatever that message was supposed to be), especially since:

A. he’d already proved that was possible with Linguini,

B. he never actually manages to change the opinion of anyone else besides the critic and Collette, both of whom lose their jobs as a result; and

C. the rat/human status quo appears completely unchanged at the end.

If anything, they could have tied it all together a lot more neatly by having the health inspector have a change of heart. “Extraordinary! I… I see that this rat does have the talent you describe! Well… if he indeed washes his paws thoroughly while cooking… I suppose I could make… (glances nervously at enormous crowd of rats glowering at him outside window) --ONE exception…”

Yeah, okay, I guess I’d buy those explanations, but once again THEY WEREN’T IN THE FLIPPIN’ MOVIE! I appreciate your efforts to make this stuff work for me, though. I guess it was kind of a long movie already, but it would have been nice if they could have touched on some of this rather than just have “health inspector ex machina” swoop down to close Gusteau’s like the big foot in the Monty Python cartoons.

107

I just got back from seeing this- Pixar’s finest. I’ve said that after seeing every one of Pixar’s films, but they just keep improving on themselves! Both the adults and the kids were laughing out loud at the film and the funny short Lifted (which coincidentially bears some similarities to the film, since they both involve someone being controlled by another “thing”- although in Lifted the victim is unaware, of course). The storyline was captivating, and the animation was very well-done. The hand-drawn credit sequence was a nice touch- and the disclaimer at the end which reminds you the film was done without motion capture shows how far computer animation has gone and how well any form of animation can be used to tell a story. Gusteau says anyone can cook, and Remy and Linguini learn that when you’ve got the right team, you can make a masterpiece. The same thing can be said about this film.

I wasn’t that disturbed by it- even some of the kids appeared to think it was funny when the couple finally made up. The film also featured scenes in which a character was wielding a gun in an attempt to kill Remy, and a scene in which Skinner gets Linguini drunk in order to spill the beans about Remy. Many old Looney Tunes cartoons and shows like The Flintstones and their ilk (though not originally meant for children, but put on in kiddie timeslots for years) feature scenes involving marital and/or romantic disputes, threats to kill, gunshots, and drunkenness, so I think most children at least know what these things are, even if they might not fully understand them. (I can’t even begin to think about how many old Looney Tunes I saw where the plot was bascially “the stork got drunk and delivered the wrong baby to the wrong family, hilarity ensues.”) I think things like this go into plot development and making a story that both kids and adults enjoy. The biggest example is

The revelation that Linguini is the illegitimate son of Gusteau and his only living heir, and thus the inheritor of the restaurant. I think most kids will understand that Linguini is Gusteau’s son, but of course, they aren’t going to realize that Gusteau was having extramarital sex or sex out of wedlock, whatever the case may be. But they don’t need to to understand that part of the story.

108

Ah, now I begin to see where this idea is coming from. “Twist ending” in movies has become more or less synonymous with the films of M. Night Shamalyan in recent years, and so that’s the model you’re applying here. But that’s not the definition of “twist ending,” merely a commonly used type. A “twist ending” is simply an ending with a twist. It’s a “plot twist,” only it happens at the end of the story. It may change the meaning of everything that has come before it, but it doesn’t have to.

109

I think you’re referring to a denouement, not a “twist”.

110

Regarding political correctness, I thought it was interesting that in the scene where Remy imagines all of the Gusteau Frozen Food cutouts coming to life and shilling their products while the real Gusteau gives advice, the only one we don’t hear speak is the Chinese Gusteau. Even though doing a fake Asian accent when you’re white is un-PC, apparently dressing up in a Coolie hat and Fu Manchu suit for the purposes of selling fake Chinese food is still OK. (Of course, it’s still fair game to imitate Southerners, Scots, Mexicans, Colonel Sanders, dogs, etc.)

111

I’d say the opposite: you’re using it in such a broad manner as to render it meaningless. Any movie where you can’t see the ending coming from a mile away would have a twist ending, which means we’ve just substituted “twist” for “good.” There was nothing unexpected about the closing of Gusteau’s. It was established immediately that, if word got out there were rats in the place, it would be closed. The character of the health inspector was established at the beginning of the second act. You see him kidnapped and tied up by an army of rats, in the kitchen. The restaurant being shut down as a result is a natural expectation of the elements introduced thus far in the movie. Of course, you expect the heroes to somehow avoid that fate, but the fact that they didn’t, does not constitute a twist ending.

Hardly! He’s still got two major scenes after that, when he captures Remy, and when he sneaks into the restaurant to gloat over the incipent dismal review from Ego, and ends up stumbling in on the kitchen situation. As to us not seeing his reaction to the restaurants closure, it’s hardly necessary. Closing down the restaurant was his explicit goal: that’s why he called the health inspector in the first place. He succeeded at his goal. There’s no need to bring him back after that. Leaving us with the last sight of him, trussed up and locked in a closet, works because it gives the emotional feel of him being defeated: without ever bringing him back on screen, they’ve effectively locked him in that closet forever. Even though the narration says he was released, the last time we see him is at his lowest, and that’s how we remember the character at the end. Bringing him back to gloat would leave us with the image of him on top, which would not be as dramatically satisfying, unless they invented an excuse for the protagonists to kick his legs out from under him again, which at that point in the movie would have been inappropriately meanspirited for the character resolutions they were aiming for.

Linguini gave up the restaurant the moment he admitted that he wasn’t the cook. He may own the physical property, but it’s not “his” restaurant anymore. That was his sacrifice. Anton’s sacrifice was putting his reputation on the line by backing cuisine he knew to have been prepared by rodents. Sure, he probably would have preferred not to lose his reputation, but he was willing to take that risk to give an artist his proper due.

Of course it was jarring. Unexpected juxtaposition is the basis of all comedy. I thought the sudden transition from, “We win! We win!” to “We’re closed!” was pretty funny, and I recall that the two audiences I saw the movie with got a chuckle out of it, too. But it also worked thematically. Gusteau’s represented the false goal: Remy thought he didn’t want to be a rat, and Gusteau’s gave him the opportunity to pretend to be human. Linguini didn’t really care about food, he just wanted a job, or specifically, he wanted money. At first to keep from starving, of course, but after the restuarant became succesful, fame and money became goals in and of themselves. For both characters, pursuit of these false goals was unfulfilling and destructive. The turning point for both characters is when they give up the false goal, and pursue what they really want. For Linguini, it’s a relationship with the woman he loves, Collette, and his best friend, Remy. For Remy, it’s the respect of his family, and in particular, his father. The point of Gusteau’s closing down is to show that they really have gotten over their false goals. Gusteau’s is gone, and so is everything they thought they could get out of it, and they’re all the happier for it.

112

Plot twist.

113

Yeah, it kind of does. The expected outcome changes. That’s a “twist.”

Ah, I’d totally forgotten that bit amid all the other stuff going on, obviously. I would bet money that in modern scriptwriting classes, they must teach some sort of system or formula for layering in all these little subplots, and the students keep track of them by color-coding each one on a graph or something, and cramming in as many interwoven threads as possible is considered a sign of scriptwriting talent. These classes must be found, and stopped.

114

Neither of the scenarios I postulated are in the movie, but one of them must be true. Remy and Linguini are working at another restaurant, and doing well for themselves: there’s a line of customers waiting for the human section, and the rat section is packed. Either the people in line don’t know that the cook is a rat, or they don’t care. The second ending I suggested is the more implausible, but it’s also the best supported. At least a dozen humans know about Remy by the end of the movie. The fact that there were rats in the Gusteau’s kitchen (in whatever capacity) is clearly public knowledge, as we can see from the handbills pasted over the front door. Anton lost his reputation for endorsing the food at Gusteau’s, but it doesn’t make any sense for that to happen for a normal health violation. How is a food critic supposed to know if there’s vermin in the kitchen? And at the end of the film, he’s running a restaurant that has a rat-sized gantry attached to the window in the kitchen door. That seems to lean pretty heavily towards, “It’s generally known that a rat was cooking gourmet food in a French restaurant.”

On the other hand, like you say, if the intent had been to show rats and humans living together in harmony, they sure did it in a roundabout manner. I think Phase42 has the best answer so far: Remy cooks for his fellow rats, and only goes into the human kitchen to cook for Anton. I still think more about Remy’s role in the kitchen at Gusteau’s must be public knowledge, else why would Anton have lost his job, but the larger implications of that remain secret.

I submit that, by definition, if you have to pretend to be a different species to succeed, you aren’t being true to yourself. Being a chef is only part of who he is: he’s also a rat, and what he ultimatly needs is not recognition from humans for his value as a chef, but recognition from his family for his value as a rat. The climax for Remy isn’t when Anton eats the ratatouille: by that point, Remy knows he can “beat” Anton. The climax for Remy comes earlier, when his dad tells him that even if he doesn’t understand the cooking thing himself, he respects Remy for his dedication to it.

The movie never shows the rats tying the health inspector up, either. You seem him drive off with his car covered in rats, and a few minutes later, you see him trussed up like a ham. How did he get from one state to the other? Well, obviously, the rats somehow got him out of his car, got a very long rope, and held him still while they tied him up like a Japanese bondage model.

Compared to that, figuring out how he convinced the Paris department of health to close down a restaurant that’s swarming with rats without being locked up in an institution is a pretty small intuitive leap: he either didn’t mention smart rats, or he brought a witness along to corroborate his story.

115

No, the expected outcome doesn’t change. What happens when you get a thousand rats in the kitchen of a restaurant? The restauarant is closed by the health department. That’s the expected outcome.

So, you’re saying that the plot of Ratatouille was too complex for you?

Because… wow. I mean, you’ve got two things to keep track of: how Remy and Linguini are going to beat Skinner, and how Remy and Linguini are going to beat Anton. That’s two plots. I don’t think color coding is necessary.

116

I might have gone a little heavy on the snark in that last post. Apologies if I offended, Terrifel.

117

Aw, lighten up, mobo. Like Archie Bunker’s racial prejudices, the Gusteau stereotypes were hardly seen in a positive light. They were the result of Skinner trying to milk the dead chef’s name and reputation for a line of microwave products – I hesitate to call them foods.

118

This is a joke, right?

119

Oh fine, now I have to go back and edit out all my cranky comments from this reply. Apology accepted, killjoy. :wink:

In real life, sure. But you said it yourself earlier: you expect the heroes to avoid that fate. That’s the expected outcome of the movie.

It’s like the end of the movie Indiana Jones and the Well-Hidden Thing, where he learns of this really well-hidden thing, and spends the whole film looking for it, but he never actually does because it’s so well-hidden.

I’m saying that there were a large number of subplots to keep track of.

I thought it was a bit more intricate than that:

How are Remy and Linguini going to beat Skinner?

How are Remy and Linguini going to beat Anton?

How will Remy find a way to cook?

How are Remy and Linguini going to fool the kitchen staff?

How will Remy find his clan again?

How is Remy going to resolve his relationship with his father?

How will Remy deal with the other rats who want food from the restaurant?

How will Remy address his responsibility as his clan’s poison detector?

How is Linguini going to win Collette’s heart?

How will rats and humans learn to get along?

How will Remy achieve the praise that he is denied?

How will Gasteau’s Restaurant going to regain its two lost stars?

How will Gasteau’s Restaurant survive the health inspector?
Granted, they weren’t ALL running at the same time, but there was a lot of overlap.

120

Dang, I just realized that I forgot to spoiler-box the ending of Indiana Jones and the Well-Hidden Thing.

Sorry about that, everyone.