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

This review is menuPremiered at the 2022 Fantastic Fest. It has been updated and republished to coincide with the theatrical release of the film.

One of 2021’s most talked-about movie scenes reads like an unplanned prequel to Mark Myrod’s black and bloody comedy thriller menuby Michael Sarnoski PigChef-turned-traitor Rob gently guts one of Rob’s former employees, the chef of a fancy fine-dining restaurant. In Rob’s view, another chef found himself when he abandoned his dream of owning a cozy and cozy pub in favor of serving elaborately deconstructed dishes to price-conscious snobs. “Every day you wake up, you get less,” Rob tells the chef, who looks devastated, but it’s not like he disagrees. Live your life, but they don’t even see you, you don’t even see yourself.”

menu It feels like the next step in that story if the ill-fated haute chef decides to make Rob’s revelation outward to his customers rather than inward. menu Chef Rob despises the kind of people who eat at that restaurant, eating its “emulsified scallops” and “huckleberry foam bathed in smoke from Douglas fir cones.” But they also have a little humanity. One of the most interesting things about him in this movie is how the filmmakers find room to skewer every visible target.

Margot, played by Anya Taylor-Joy, secures a seat at a private island fine dining restaurant led by celebrity chef Slowik (Ralph Fiennes) for a last-minute date for rich gourmet Tyler (Nicholas Hoult). Margot doesn’t mind the kind of food Chef Slowik serves, including a few cleverly spaced-apart sauce blotches billed as a cheeky “bread-less bread course.” plug. But Tyler is obsessed with Chef Slowik’s work and the possibility of getting his attention and interest. They’ve been a strange couple from the start, with a strange tension that suggests secrets are waiting to be revealed.

They’re not the only ones with secrets. Other diners on this particular night included a smug food critic (Janet McTeer) and her zany editor (Paul Adelstein), a minor movie star (John Leguizamo) and his assistant (Aimee Carrero). included. An elderly couple who stays up bragging about spending their dinner fraudulently and feels they can recognize Margot. Then there’s Chef Slowick, who plans a dangerous “menu” for the night designed to uncover secrets.

How far Chef Slowik goes, and what happens to Margot, dominates the complication most of the time. menu. Otherwise, it could unfold as a rather grim and familiar revenge thriller aimed at easy targets, such as the wealthy, entitled, rude and complacent. Unless there’s more happening beneath the surface menu It risks coming across as a flashy version of one of those teenage slashers about watching a symbolically obnoxious and superficial young man mow down by a murderer.

Instead, Seth Rice and Will Tracy’s script unleashes a revelation with careful pacing and a sense of escalation, balancing sympathy between victim and mastermind. It’s clear that you don’t expect your audience to fully throw in people paying $1,250 a person for a minimalist dinner, for the right to do so.Margot is a natural protagonist, and Taylor-Joy gives her a fiercely fragile “I’m totally over this nonsense” energy, making her a compelling protagonist. delivers an equally strong performance as a man who is forced to accept the pretense of being a whalebut the most memorable villains of 2019 watchmen series).

And as always, Fiennes himself is quite the asset. He directs his actions like a cult leader at his own restaurant, putting on a warm and benevolent face when it fits the story, and bringing a ruthless form of psychopath to the table in other scenes. Trying to guess what lies beneath his surface is one of his great challenges in this film, as well as one of his greatest joys. This is largely because he’s scripted and played as a villain with a few sympathetic wrinkles—a man who seeks empathy but also evokes fear.

Photo: Eric Zachanowicz/Searchlight Pictures

menu Often read like an extended version of a set of plays. A group of people forced into close proximity gradually crack under pressure to reveal new things about themselves. It’s the staging itself that keeps it going, not the energy of that stage. Production designer Ethan Tobuman was inspired by all of Luis Buñuel’s devastating 1962 film. angel of extinction (another film about self-righteous elites who cannot escape each other) to German Expressionist architecture. He and cinematographer Peter Deming give the film a grim, punishing chill that highlights both the lack of comfort or warmth in haute cuisine and Chef Slowik’s state of mind. It’s a suitably gorgeous, sensory-driven film, with something eye-catching in every frame.

menu However, it does not always add up. There is a strange reluctance to commit to the grand guignol potential of the film. This is probably out of a desire to retain the cast for the final act. The film’s arrogance and disdain for rights are candid and satisfying, but Elsa’s jealousy of Margot and the throwbacks for not remembering his cooking. The revenge story gets a little stiffer when other motives start driving the narrative, such as Chef Wick’s wrath.

Still, Reiss and Tracy’s willingness to involve chef Slowik in his vain and superficial-obsessed schemes menu Some amazing conspiracies.As pompous chef Nicolas Cage speaks out PigSlowik engineered his own downfall and his own torment, and menu Doesn’t get him off the hook by unfolding as a simple rich man’s morality tale. The humor in this film is mostly subtle (especially the hilarious and ironic course titles that appear on screen), but it’s ultimately as comedic as horror his thriller. There’s a knuckle-biting tension as viewers wait to see how it all unfolds, but Mylod and the writers aren’t sure if they’re delivering a flashy version of mayhem or simply paying. It also suggests it’s worth a little laugh for everyone involved, regardless of whether they’re nose for it.

menu is currently in theaters.