The journey to finding one’s heart and passion can often prove to be quite challenging, especially when a parent’s own fears come in the way of it. Sometimes it becomes necessary in a person’s life to walk away from everything they know, including their family, just to discover whom they really are inside. The Hundred-Foot Journey is a delightful movie that ends up depicting this extremely well.
The Hundred-Foot Journey is all about a young man named Hassan (Manish Dayal) who has the gift of cooking. When his family is forced to flee their home in native India due to civil unrest, Hassan’s passion for the culinary becomes his only outlet to handling all his frustrations in life. After several failed attempts to settle down in various places, they eventually end up in Saint-Antonin-Noble-Val in the south of France, when their vehicle breaks down. While repairs are being made to it, Hassan’s father (Om Puri) sees promise in the remains of old run down restaurant for sale and it’s there he decides it’s time to finally settle down for good. As they prepare to open their new family restaurant there with Hassan at the cooking helm, they meet Madame Mallory (Helen Mirren) who’s the owner of the highly ranked French establishment just 100 feet across the street from them. It becomes quite obvious early on to Hassan’s family how unhappy Mallory is with the idea of an Indian restaurant being so close to her place of fine dining.
While Hassan’s father and Madam Mallory begin to battle each other out of fear for the survival of their own businesses, he finds his only peace and serenity can come by doing more of what he loves the most, which is cooking. With the aid of Marguerite (Charlote Le Bon), who actually works as a sous chef for Mallory, Hassan begins to combine his native Indian spices into various French cuisines and in the process wins the favor, and a job offer, from Mallory herself. Unfortunately, Hassan’s father doesn’t approve and instead wants his son to remain preparing the same Indian dishes his deceased wife once prepared so exquisitely. As Hassan is forced to look within at both his growing affections for Marguerite and his desire to grow his culinary talent, The Hundred-Foot Journey spins a wonderful story about the journey he takes to find what his true heart and passion is in life.
I’m so grateful for movies such as this, because I’m currently on my own journey of finding out what my true heart and passion is in life as well. Watching Hassan pursue his culinary dream regardless of what was going on around him, truly inspired me. While cooking is not and never has been my forte, writing, speaking, and teaching about all of what I’ve gone through in life is. Unfortunately, like Hassan, I’ve met my own resistance along the way to pursuing these things. My mother was the first as she was quite concerned about my openness in life. Both my sister and my partner have also at times shared this view. Sometimes friends have even questioned it as well, while some have even gone so far as trying to derail me from following it at all. But watching Hassan in The Hundred-Foot Journey seek his heart and passion no matter what the rest of the world felt he should do, clearly reminded me how important it is for me to keep sticking to the guidance my Higher Power and my soul continues to give me with my own.
So while my heart and passion may never be in the culinary arts like Hassan’s was, I do believe I’m on the right path now to developing my own after watching this movie in the theater the other day. The Hundred-Foot Journey was truly a great reminder of how important it is for me to follow my own inner guidance, even if it means I must stand apart from what everyone else thinks I should be doing.
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson