Oddly, it's an animated movie that manages to aptly portray the combination of dreamy creativity, pragmatism, and the steely will it takes to run a successful restaurant. That the plot is sheer fantasy, and the brilliant chef is a rat, doesn't lessen the emotional viability. Ratatouille is among the most exacting when it comes to details—the horizontal oven burns across the cooks' wrists, their slightly stooped posture, the scratches in the pots. It's also the only movie I've seen since Eat Drink Man Woman to capture both the spirit of the chef-as-artist, and the restaurant-as-machine. The most mesmerizing scene in the movie comes when the human sauté chefs abandon the restaurant, and Remy calls in his rodent friends to pinch hit—teeming with rats, the whole kitchen comes alive with Rube Goldberg-like activity, and a brilliant meal is produced. It's the combination of researched naturalism, big fantastical gestures, and no small dose of humor that makes Ratatouille one of the best food movies yet.