Let’s get this out of the best way shortly: The Menu shouldn’t be—I repeat, not—a film about cannibalism. I say this to not spoil potential viewers however to reassure, because it’s the primary query virtually anybody who’s conscious of the movie has requested me. Just what is occurring in Mark Mylod’s pitch-black comedy a few celeb chef presiding over a really particular meal for the rich and well-known? Something sinister, sure, with an “eat the rich” mentality—however Julian Slowik (performed by Ralph Fiennes) shouldn’t be turning his diners into meals, neither is he feeding them different diners.
Even although oligarchs don’t turn into hamburgers, The Menu shouldn’t be the subtlest of satires. The world of haute delicacies is crammed with pretentious know-it-alls and simpering hangers-on, and this movie is overflowing with each. An ensemble of prosperous buffoons collect at an unique island restaurant, the place Chef Slowik is promising to serve the meal of a lifetime. The film’s tone is straight away acidic, and Fiennes’s efficiency is hilariously homicidal, so viewers know fairly shortly that the prepare dinner has one thing nasty deliberate. But the movie’s most trenchant insights come at Slowik’s expense, as he reckons with the ethical limitations of his mysterious campaign.
Mylod is among the chief administrators on Succession, and he brings that present’s exact visible sharpness to this movie, which was written by Seth Reiss and Will Tracy. The story is about virtually solely at Chef Slowik’s restaurant getaway, Hawthorne, which serves solely a handful of consumers, all arriving by chartered boat, every night time. Among them are Tyler (Nicholas Hoult), a mega-fan who can recite Slowik’s gastronomic feats down to each liver gel and truffle foam, and Margot (Anya Taylor-Joy), his date, who appears far much less enthused about sucking deconstructed entrées from crystal tubes.
Every baffling fancy-restaurant development is on show at Hawthorne, and every course appears designed to be two steps forward of the preening friends. Among the gang are a washed-up film star (John Leguizamo), a scathing critic (Janet McTeer), and a set of obnoxious finance bros. Tyler stands proud as a real admirer of Slowik, however his apparently deep information belies the truth that he’s one thing of a grating dilettante. Mylod stacks the deck in opposition to our goodwill for the diners—they’re like loud, sexy youngsters barging into an deserted cabin in a Friday the thirteenth film, virtually begging to be the victims of a deranged slasher.
So when Slowik begins to regularly unfurl his grander design, an unsettling thrill shoots via the macabre depth of all of it. The dishes begin to really feel personally pointed, as if the chef is someway conscious of the friends’ darkest secrets and techniques; the distant exclusivity of Hawthorne’s island location turns into increasingly ominous; and Slowik’s imperious maître d’, Elsa (Hong Chau), quietly however firmly stops anybody from leaving the room lest they miss any of the limitless programs. The film is a Twilight Zone episode spun to function size, with a success of Luis Buñuel’s surrealist traditional The Exterminating Angel—a 1962 movie about wealthy friends who discover themselves unable to exit their luxurious ceremonial dinner.
The Menu shouldn’t be fairly as clever: It delivers its jokes as a collection of hammer blows, ensuring to villainize the assembled diners past any hope of redemption. Mordant presentation of the ultra-wealthy has been a recurring theme in cinema this yr. Ruben Östlund’s Triangle of Sadness torments billionaires on a cruise ship, and Rian Johnson’s upcoming Glass Onion takes intention on the foolishness of tech CEOs. The Menu is exclusive, as a result of it casts Slowik as each hero and villain. He’s not mistaken to simmer with hatred for his elitist prospects, however he’s additionally seething at the truth that he has, in reality, turn into one in all them, propped up by the very system they created.
That’s the place Margot is available in. The Menu’s one really relatable determine, she’s performed with flinty confidence by Taylor-Joy (who is almost incapable of being uninteresting on-screen). A reluctant interloper dragged alongside by Tyler, Margot will get to the underside of Slowik’s plans and begins flitting between sides, balancing the righteous purity of his marketing campaign in opposition to the acute cruelty of his particular ways. She calls out his hypocrisy whereas exploring the ambiguous ethics of “eating the rich,” even metaphorically. Her presence offers The Menu a surprisingly conservative streak, however that, in flip, offers the story some grist, and a dilemma for the viewers to ponder on the best way out—extra meals for thought than your common shiny fall thriller tends to supply.