A young man probes the past in Eric Khoo's family, food and feud movie, RAMEN SHOP

A sweet and homey family, food (and, yes, a little feud) tale, RAMEN SHOP offers a lot of can't-miss ingredients which hit their mark pretty damned close to the bull's eye -- if you don't mind a combination of food so delicious looking you can indeed nearly taste it, quite a bit of exposition and some sentimentality in both style and content. TrustMovies didn't mind and suspects you might not, either.

As directed by Singapore filmmaker Eric Khoo (shown below, of Be With Me), and perhaps written by him, too

(the IMDB lists no actual writer on the film), Ramen Shop is the story of a young man named Masato, who is distant from his chef/ramen shop-owner father (his mother died years ago) and who, more than anything else, desires to learn how to make a really delicious soup, just like his family members made in the old days when everyone was alive and (relatively) happy.

To this end Masato (played with great charm and feeling by Saitoh Takumi) leaves Japan for Singapore and some family members he has not seen for years. The movie becomes a kind of "food" journey, in which not only do we get to see the food made and eaten but we also hear about how to make it. This verbal/visual combination works surprisingly well in helping us understand what's so special about the menu here. Granted, you cannot actually taste the food, but I think Ramen Shop comes as close in this regard as any movie I've so far seen.

The acting ensemble assembled by the filmmaker proves every bit as good as Mr. Saitoh, too. Each member brings such caring and grace to the proceedings that you are immediately pulled in to the story and the emotions it conjures.

Discovering a trove of family momentos is the key to sending our boy off to Singapore and to the new friends and old family members he encounters there -- who, in addition to all the cooking, more than make the trip worthwhile.

Mr. Khoo flips back and forth between past and present  and does this cannily enough that we soon easily follow along. During the film's second half, we get a history lesson regarding Japan and Singapore during World War II -- which serves to explain the events that still divide this family.

Ramen Shop offers an unusual kind of culture clash, one that is finally put to rest via food. Yes, it's sentimental as all get-out, but the movie also hits its mark, over and over again, with surprising accuracy. I suspect that by the finale you'll agree that the words, "Let's eat!" have seldom been uttered with such meaning and resonance.

From Strand Releasing and running a crisp 90 minutes, the film opened in New York City last weekend (at the IFC Center and The Landmark at 57 West) and will open in another 20-odd cities across the country during April and May. Click here then scroll down to click on Screenings to see all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters. (Here in Boca Raton, it will tentatively open May 3 at the Living Room Theaters.)

Scenes from a marriage, French-style, in Nicolas Bedos/Doria Tillier's funny/moving/ surprising MONSIEUR & MADAME ADELMAN

The remarkable -- and remarkably entertaining -- French film from 2017, MONSIEUR ET MADAME ADELMAN, seems to me all the more so for never getting a theatrical release here in the USA. Instead it is arriving straight-to-DVD via Icarus Home Video and Distrib Films US and is very much worth seeking out.

What's more, it bears quite a noticeable comparison to another recent film that I shall not name here, for fear for giving away a major spoiler. It is also better by leaps and bounds than that not-to-be-mentioned movie, which, if you've seen it, by the end of Monsieur et Madame Adelman, you will probably cry its name aloud. A creation of the film's director, co-writer and leading actor, shown at far left, Nicolas Bedos (son of Guy Bedos), and co-writer and leading actress, Doria Tillier, shown near left, the movie tracks, over two very solid hours, the four-decades-plus relationship of this eventual husband and wife, with all the ups and down one might expect -- plus quite a lot more that one might not.

The film begins at the end, as our heroine sits down for an interview with a journalist regarding her life with her late husband, a famous Prix Goncourt-winning writer, of whom she was probably his fiercest critic. From the almost schoolgirlish crush she has on the guy, through a very oddball sort of seduction via, first, his best friend and then his older brother, Sarah Adelman achieves just about all she sets her sights on, along with other things she'd perhaps have preferred not to.

Her man and budding writer, Victor (how he comes by her last name proves one of the many delights of this film), is actually nowhere near as interesting as his wife, which, by the end of this unusual movie, becomes one of the more pertinent points of discussion about M. & Mme. Adelman.

Oh, he is plenty interesting enough, as portrayed by Bedos fils, yet this movie makes clear that he is also, somehow, a kind of creation of Sarah who, from the very first, refuses to see him as he is but rather as the person she wants him to be. But then don't so many of us, when "falling in love," see someone quite other than the person standing right in front of us? We're just not maybe so single-minded and insistent as Sarah.

While the film takes the usual course -- respective families, work, success (above), parenting (below), middle age and beyond -- how all these play out is not so much the expected. (The couple's first-born child: whew!) And being a French film, we're also given a tad more philosophizing and food-for-thought that an American counterpart might offer.

The movie's awash with humor, often of the dark variety. It is also a grand romance -- in its oddball way. And a "history" of sorts. Psychiatry/therapy play into things, as well, with the gifted Denis Podalydès in the role of Victor's shrink. (The film's "take" on Judaism is unusual, too -- a welcome change from so much else we've seen.)

Where M. & Mme. Adelman is going and how it gets there is as surprising as is most else about this film. It will leave you, I think, with very mixed feelings. Which, TrustMovies suspects, is exactly how these talented filmmakers would want you to feel.

From Distrib Films US via Icarus Home Video and running 120 minutes, the movie hits the street on DVD this coming Tuesday, March 12 -- for purchase and/or rental.  Do check this one out!