Ratatouille gallery

Meet Remy, a rodent pest who also happens to be a culinary genius. He's just arrived in Paris on a bold mission to prove what his idol - celebrity chef Gusteau - has always insisted. 'Anyone can cook.' Photograph: PR

Now here's Linguini, a lowly kitchen boy who also happens to be Gusteau's illegitimate son. Linguini can't cook at all. But Remy can, so that's all right. Maybe these two should go into partnership. Photograph: PR

The foxy femme in white is named Colette. And she can cook. Except that she is self-evidently a woman, which means that, officially, she can't. Cheffing is a male-dominated world after all. Photograph: PR

Take this fellow. His name is Skinner and he's the head chef at one of the fanciest restaurants in town. This presumably means that he's pretty sweet at cooking. So why does he look so sour? Photograph: PR

And here's Skinner's merry band, otherwise known as the kitchen staff. One is an ex-con, another a card-sharp, another a shady mercenary fleeing some dodgy revolution in foreign climes. Seriously: would you eat a meal prepared by these men? Photograph: PR

Anton Ego would! And he's the fussiest, snootiest food critic who ever ate a monkfish. He can also kill a restaurant with a stroke of his pen. Naturally he is no fan of rats. Photograph: PR

So what's a rodent to do? Should he abandon his dreams of being the best chef in Paris and throw in his lot with his grizzled old dad and his beloved horde of incontinent, plague-carrying pests ....? Photograph: PR

... or should he remember his hero Gusteau's maxim that 'anyone can cook' and keep reaching for the stars? Or at least for the oregano. Far left, top shelf. Photograph: PR