The Ramen Girl Movie Review

I enjoy foodie movies. They show a deep passion for food and cooking. My favorite is probably Julie & Julia.  I discovered The Ramen Girl (2008) while browsing around NetFlix. The thought of a movie about someone learning to make a traditional dish that was not from her own country interested me a great deal. But the actual movie fell short of its potential.

Abby (Brittany Murphy), four years out of college, an aimless child of privilege, follows her boyfriend to Tokyo, who then promptly leaves Abby and heads to Osaka for another job prospect. In hopes that her ex-boyfriend will return to Tokyo, Abby decides to stay. While there, she is miserable; she speaks little Japanese and has a dull job as a law-firm gopher. One evening she stumbles into the neighborhood ramen shop operated by the aging master chef Maezumi (Toshiyuki Nishida) and his wife Reiko (Kimiko Yo). His soup cheers Abby, so she decides to apprentice herself to him. He’s uninterested, but she is insistent. So he shouts at her and gives her all the cleaning to do. Weeks go by, and still she persists, not knowing if he will ever actually teach her to cook, or if she will ever have the requisite spirit for the job.

Brittany Murphy gained acting notoriety in one of her early films, Clueless, where she played the target in a teen girl make over movie. She’s also known for voicing Luanne Platter in the King of the Hill prime time animated sitcom. It seems she primarily played dim-witted young ladies for most of her career. Abby in The Ramen Girl wasn’t much different. She’s depicted as an air head, but the problems Abby is faced with aren’t all that eccentric given her situation. I’m sure anyone would react with such composure when stuck in a large city in the middle of a foreign country where they don’t speak the language. I felt like I was supposed to think Abby was simpleton, but I found her more relatable than the target stupid blond jokes.

The Ramen Girl was pretty tame. It felt about as bold and realistic as a Disney Channel original movie featuring Ashley Tisdale or Miley Cyrus; pretty, spoiled blond girl who has never worked a day in her life suddenly has to try to prove herself rather than sit around looking pretty. Unlike Disney’s TV-cinema abominations, The Ramen Girl does a half decent job with this story trope. Maybe I’m biased since I like foodie movies so much. I’ve seen plenty of other movies about self-actualization and personal fulfillment convey the theme a whole lot better, but this wasn’t bad. Julie & Julia did the same thing through cooking, but was so well done and inspiring that it prompted me to start this blog. I didn’t really feel like I needed to go live my dreams by the end of The Ramen Girl.

There’s also the classic master/student dynamic between Abby and Maezumi. The Ramen Girl is to ramen what The Karate Kid is to martial arts. The wise master puts the student through grueling training to teach them how to perfect a skill. One would not suppose that making soup would be all that grueling, but The Japanese are very proud of their traditional ramen dish, or at least they are depicted so in this movie. There are lots of scenes that accentuate the difference between American and Japanese culture, but none were very impressive. Lost in Translation did the same thing so much better.

The Ramen Girl is a nice, cute feel good movie, but is pretty bland and predictable. You can see everything this movie tries to achieve done better in other movies. Unlike characters in the Disney Channel movies mentioned above, Abby is a young adult woman, not a 15 year old girl. We see her drinking and smoking pretty regularly. That may be a red flag for any viewers who want to watch this with their young kids. Abby looks so much like the Disney Channel teen girls that impressionable kids may get the wrong impression about appropriate drinking or smoking ages. I’m glad I saw The Ramen Girl. It wasn’t too bad a movie, and it made me want to learn how to make authentic ramen soup rather than that those fifteen cent packages you can get at any grocery store. The Ramen Girl might be worth renting to see it once, but certainly not worth the money to own a copy.

Do you have a favorite "foodie" movie? What is it and why do you like it so much? Comment below and let me know!

Ferris Bueller's Day Off Movie Review

Iconic movies are really fun to watch, especially if they were released before your time. When I first saw movies like Psycho (1960), Apocalypse Now (1979), and Rocky (1976) a whole bunch of cartoons that parodied them suddenly became much funnier. That’s essentially what happened when I finally got around to seeing Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986). The parodies that referenced these movies were funny, but the movies themselves were fantastic.

Everyone at school loves Ferris Bueller (Matthew Broderick); he’s one of the coolest seniors, and everything seems to go his way. One morning in the spring, he decides to take the day off. Using some elaborate schemes, he fakes being sick and convinces his parent to excuse him from school. Ferris talks his pessimistic friend Cameron Frye (Alan Ruck), who actually is sick, to join him and get Ferris’s girlfriend Sloane Peterson (Mia Sara) out of school, too. The three take Cameron’s father’s prized car, a red convertible 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California, and spend the day roaming around Chicago. The three visit famous Chicago landmarks such as the Sears Tower, the Art Institute of Chicago, and a game at Wrigley Field all while dodging Mr. Bueller who is innocuously going about his job. Ed Rooney (Jeffrey Jones), the suspicious Dean of Students, knows what Ferris is like and is bent on exposing his antics. Ferris’s sister, Jeanie (Jennifer Grey), is sick of Ferris getting away with everything and also wants to expose Ferris to their parents. Mr. Rooney and Jeanie both threaten to ruin Ferris’s last fling with friends before they graduate and go to different colleges.

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off has all the quintessential aspects of a generic “teen movie.” It glorifies young people; they succeed at nearly everything they do and outsmart the adults who should be much more intelligent and experienced. Like a lot of teen movies, the adults in Ferris Bueller are one-dimensional and don’t try or want to understand the cool and trendy teenagers. The Adults basically exist to prevent teenagers from having fun. Ferris’s parents, however, really do show a genuine concern and love for their children. I thought that was refreshing; a lot of movies aimed at a kid or teen audiences depict parents as stupid, aloof, or even antagonistic towards their children.

Everyone in the movie loves Ferris Bueller. Even his enemies (like Mr. Rooney and Jeanie) admire him and want him to fail out of jealousy. Ferris breaks the fourth wall several times throughout the film to speak to the audience about his plans and thoughts. The things Ferris says to the audience are often insightful about the nature of people and the world. It’s a bit uncharacteristic for a teenager to be as intuitive and perceptive as Ferris. Heck, I want a friend like Ferris Bueller!

One of the most interesting aspects of Ferris is he is the mentor archetype; this type of character usually does not appear as the main protagonist. Other mentor archetypes include Yoda from Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1980); Alfred from Batman Begins (2004); and Mr. Miyagi from The Karate Kid (1984). These characters play an important part; they teach and guide the hero so the hero can succeed. Ferris is knowledgeable and insightful enough to have this role and he desires to impart this knowledge and spiritual insight to Cameron. Cameron is trapped within his own misery, and kept there by an oppressive father. Ferris takes it upon himself to show Cameron that life is what you make of it and that Cameron’s illusory limitations are imposed by an authority figure that can’t hold Cameron back much longer. Ferris even acts as a mentor to the audience when he breaks the fourth wall, imparting advice to the viewers as well.

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is at its core a very fun and light-hearted film. It also touches on deeper subjects of fulfillment and responsibility. It revels in youthful enthusiasm of the world, shows fun characters taking their first steps into the maturity of adulthood, has plenty of laughs, and includes a musical number featuring Twist and Shout by The Beatles. What’s not to love? It remains a favorite to many people. It’s certainly worth watching at least once, maybe even worth getting a copy for your collection.