The Menu Review: Anya Taylor-Joy and Ralph Fiennes deconstruct the art thriller

This review was first published in connection with The menuPremiered at Fantastic Fest 2022. It was updated and re-released for the film’s theatrical release.

One of the most talked about movie scenes of 2021 reads like an unplanned prequel to Mark Mylod’s black, gory thriller The menu. With Michael Sarnoski Pig, chef and reclusive recluse Rob gently disembowels the chef at a posh haute cuisine restaurant, who also happens to be one of Rob’s former employees. From Rob’s point of view, the other chef betrayed himself when he gave up his dream of owning an intimate, cozy pub to serve lavishly deconstructed food to snobs who care about price above all else. “Every day you wake up and there’s less of you,” Rob tells the chef, who looks devastated — but not as if he disagrees. “You live your life for them, and they don’t even see you. You don’t even see yourself.”

The menu feels like the next step in this story if the hapless high-end chef had decided to direct Rob’s revelation outward toward his clientele, rather than inward. The menu mocks the kind of people who would eat at this restaurant that chef Rob despises, with his “emulsified scallops” and “collected blueberry foam bathed in Douglas fir cone smoke.” But there is also a little humanity in them. One of the most intriguing things about the film is the way the filmmakers find space to impale every target in sight.

Anya Taylor-Joy plays Margot, a last-minute date for rich, food-obsessed Tyler (Nicholas Hoult), who has secured a seat at an exclusive private-island restaurant helmed by renowned chef Slowik (Ralph Fiennes). becomes. Margot doesn’t care about the type of food Chef Slowik serves, such as a few artfully spread blobs of sauce on a plate, dubbed the cheeky “breadless bread.” But Tyler is obsessed with Chef Slowik’s work and the opportunity to gain his attention and interest. They’re an odd couple from the start, with a strange tension between them that suggests there are secrets waiting to be unraveled.

You’re not the only one with secrets. Other guests on this special evening include a smug restaurant critic (Janet McTeer) and her sycophantic editor (Paul Adelstein), a minor movie star (John Leguizamo) and his assistant (Aimee Carrero), a trio of tech-boos who kick off call it a day bragging about having spent their dinner fraudulently, and an elderly couple who think they recognize Margot. Then there’s Chef Slowik, who has planned a dangerous “menu” for the evening to unveil the secrets.

How far Chef Slowik is willing to go and what’s going on with Margot make up most of the complications The menu. Otherwise, it might just turn out to be a fairly dark and familiar revenge thriller aimed at a few simple targets: rich, entitled, rude, smug people. If there was nothing more going on beneath the surface, The menu risk coming across as a fancy version of one of those teenage slashers that are more about watching symbolically obnoxious, shallow young people get mowed down by a killer.

Instead, Seth Reiss and Will Tracy’s script doles out the revelations with a careful sense of pacing and escalation, maintaining a balance of sympathy between victims and masterminds. They clearly don’t expect audiences to fully subscribe to folks paying $1,250 a pop for a minimalist dinner, mostly to brag about the experience. They also don’t leave their victims behind as ciphers. Margot takes center stage, of course, and Taylor-Joy infuses her with a wild, demure “I’m over this nonsense” energy that makes her a compelling protagonist. Hoult plays just as well as a man who has to deal with his own demands in a particularly painful way. But each character gets a bit of stage time in turn, including Chef Slowik’s dedicated assistant, Elsa (Hong Chau, fresh out The whale

but most memorable as the villain in 2019 Guardian Series).

And Fiennes himself, as always, is a considerable asset. He directs the action at his restaurant like a cult leader, putting on a warm, benevolent face when it suits the story, and then bringing a ruthless form of cold psychopathy to the table for other scenes. Guessing what lies beneath its surface is one of the film’s greatest challenges and one of its greatest joys, especially as it’s written and performed as a villain with a few sympathetic wrinkles, a man who courts empathy while conjuring up horror .

Photo Credit: Eric Zachanowich/Searchlight Pictures

The menu often reads like an extended version of a one-sentence play in which a group of people, crammed into a small space, gradually collapse under the pressure and reveal new things about themselves. A lot of what keeps it going isn’t that stage energy, but the staging itself. Production designer Ethan Tobman drew inspiration from everything from Luis Buñuel’s devastating 1962 film The Annihilation Angel

(another film about smug elites who can’t escape each other) to German Expressionist architecture. He and cinematographer Peter Deming give the film a harsh, punishing chill that emphasizes both the lack of coziness or warmth in haute cuisine and the state of mind of chef Slowik. It’s a suitably lush and sensual film, with something striking in every frame.

The menu but it doesn’t always fit. There’s an odd reluctance to tap into the film’s Grand Guignol potential, probably out of a desire to keep the cast for the final act. There is a disconnect between Chef Slowik’s hatred of his guests and the scale of their comparable crimes, some far more personal and meaningful than others. The film’s disdain for arrogance and pretension is simple and satisfying, but when other motives drive the story forward, like Elsa’s jealousy of Margot or Chef Slowik’s anger at not remembering every one of his dishes, the revenge story curdles a bit.

Still, Reiss and Tracy’s willingness to implicate Koch Slowik along with his vain, superficial plan gives way The menu some surprising intrigues. As pretentious chef Nicolas Cage calls out PigSlowik staged his own downfall and agony, and The menu doesn’t let him off the hook by playing out as a straight-forward eat-the-rich-morals story. The humor in this film is mostly subtle (especially in the hilarious course titles that pop up on screen), but ultimately it’s both a comedy and a horror thriller. As viewers wait and see how everything will unfold, there’s some unnerving tension, but Mylod and the writers also suggest it’s worth giving everyone involved a little giggle, whether they’re serving up outlandish versions of mayhem or just plain naughty pay the nose for it.

The menu is now in cinemas.