I feel like a Japanese Daruma doll when defending Lasse Hallstrom’s The Hundred-foot Journey. Whichever way you strike them, they bounce right back.

Journey is a good film, not great. I’m a big supporter of the middle ground between mainstream and arthouse films. When mainstream movies — primarily entertaining, feel-good films — also give us something to chew on, they may nudge a wider audience to reflect on issues, than an arthouse film would. Journey is about a Muslim family (Om Puri, Manish Dayal et al) who, fleeing the Mumbai riots, settle in a French village and set up an Indian restaurant that competes with the French restaurant across the road run by Madame Mallory (Helen Mirren). But after Mme Mallory takes the young Indian chef Manish under her wing, he earns her restaurant a Michelin star, and wins the love of her charming French sous-chef Marguerite.