Review of Ratatouille, directed by Brad Bird

If you’re new here, and stumbled upon this blog through the mythical powers of the Internet, welcome! I know a lot of visitors to my website are people who randomly come upon this website through search engines like Google, but I also do have a lot of visitors who come back. Regardless: my name is Ashley, and I started this blog in order to keep track of everything I’m coming across in the world.

About a year ago (at the time of typing this) I quit my job as a professional film critic to explore what was out there in the world when it came to publishing about the movies and books I wanted to see, not just what was popular in the moment. Digital media and working within it can be fun and all, but it can be grinding when you’re just chasing after all the latest trends and clicks for SEO.

I started this blog four years ago, during the pandemic, but never really took it seriously beyond the occasional post here and there about what I was up to. In 2023 I began to realize the impact this blog was having on me, and other people were reaching out about reading it, so I expanded. Once I quit my job, I decided to focus on the blog more while job hunting, as I do make a few pennies here and there from the display ads on the screen.

In May 2025 I spontaneously went on a Europe trip. I had purchased a tour through EF Ultimate Break back in December 2024 after learning my Indian visa was denied, leaving me unemployed and without any prospects in the near future. In order to make myself feel better, I booked this Europe trip, even though it was a little bit out of my price range,

I wrote about the entire trip on the blog, but I will say that it felt like it was worth it in the end, even if I was a little more broke at the end of the day. I could entirely afford it, but I could have saved that money. Anyways, how this connects to my blog post is this way: I was going insane on the way home.

Airspace around Newark Airport was closed, and then there was a VIP in Washington D.C., so we had to reroute and stay in the air for even longer. This added to an already eight-hour trip, and I was legitimately starting to go a little insane while on this flight. That was how I ended up watching Ratatouille, as I needed something to do before I genuinely started losing it.

Let’s get into the review! I don’t want to ramble too much in the introduction.

A young French garbage boy at a famous restaurant finds a rat who’s willing to help him become a master chef.

We first meet the rat of this movie: Remy. He lives with his colony, including his brother Émile and father, and he has big dreams for a little rat. He wants to become a chef that’s renowned and loved for his food, but there’s a big problem considering what he actually is. Still he dreams of becoming like his deceased idol, Auguste Gusteau, but things are about to change drastically in Remy’s life.

When he’s in the home of the elderly woman who the colony haunts, the woman discovers Remy and Émile on her counter and freaks out. She grabs her shotgun and tries to shoot them dead, but that ends up forcing the colony to flee the premises entirely and to escape into the outside world.

Remy is separated from his colony and family, and while he’s depressed as he wanders the sewers in search of them, he ultimately decides to live his life after an apparition of Gusteau tells him it’s time to move on. When Remy wanders into the world above, he realizes he’s in Paris and can find Gusteau’s restaurant.

So he heads there, where he sees the new garbage boy, Alfredo, messing up a soup that’s brewing on the counter. He’s horrified by this and tries to help him out, which leads to Alfredo realizing that Remy is a culinary genius of a rat early on. The soup is then served, where the people in the dining room love it, and Skinner, the shady head of this failing restaurant, is immediately suspicious.

He tries to let Alfredo go, but the female chef there, Colette, tells Skinner to keep Alfredo. Skinner demands that Alfredo recreate the soup, but then sees Remy and tells Alfredo he needs to kill him. Remy and Alfredo make a pact outside that they’re going to help each other, and when they head back to his dingy apartment, Remy learns later on that he can control Alfredo like a puppet using his hair.

They continue working at the restaurant under Colette, who is haughty but kind-hearted. Skinner watches suspiciously still for the the rat, but Remy stays hidden. Émile is then found on the streets and Remy learns his clan is all alive, but his father warns him that the people at the restaurant will eventually turn on him, as they’re humans who hate rats in the end.

Skinner has a revelation while going through Gusteau’s things that Alfredo is his son and the actual heir to the restaurant. This foils his plans, as Gusteau’s will dictated Skinner will get the restaurant if no heir is found, and Remy steals the letter and gives it to Alfredo after the lawyer verifies that this is correct.

Alfredo fires Skinner and starts to take control of the restaurant, beginning a formal romantic relationship with Colette in the process. A major food critic, Anton, who contributed to Gusteau’s death because of a negative review of the restaurant, announces his plans to come back and review the food after all the hype. But there’s a problem: Remy is upset after Alfredo takes all the credit for his work at a press conference and leaves.

Skinner then kidnaps Remy, but his family comes to rescue him. He goes back to the restaurant to help Alfredo, who then shows him off to the staff. They quit in horror, but Colette comes back and cooks with them. Skinner brings the health inspector to get the place shut down, but the rats stop them by tying them up and locking them inside of the restaurant’s pantry room.

The critic is delighted by Remy’s rendition of ratatouille, as it reminds him of his mother. He meets Remy and is shocked to see it’s Remy, but writes his glowing review without mentioning he’s a rat. The restaurant is shut down though after the health inspector is freed, but the crew opens a bistro with Remy, with the critic, who now lost his job, becoming a frequent customer. The rat colony alos lives there happily, coexisting with the humans.

Overall Thoughts

I remember watching this movie when it came out in 2007 and being delighted by it, as I was a child back then and was very into kids movies, especially all the Disney and Pixar films. It was trippy to come back to this movie after so many years, and while I realize it is in no way perfect, it still has a lot of heart.

Like yeah it’s corny and cheesy in so many different ways, but a lot of us are like Remy at the end of the day. We have big dreams an despite who we are and what we can do, it’s through stories like these we’re inspired to do more than what we think we can do because if Remy the rat can do it, why can’t we?

All of this is to say is that if you haven’t seen this iconic movie, go for it. Or if you haven’t seen it in a long time, go ahead and watch it again with fresh new eyes. I’m really glad I came back to it, even if it was in a moment of bored desperation while on a flight from London back to the United States.

Follow me below on Instagram, Letterboxd, and Goodreads for more.