TMS Movie Review: The Menu
(Eric Zachanowich / Searchlight Pictures)
WARNING: This review contains spoilers.
Something is missing from Mark Mylod’s The Menu, and I’m struggling to articulate exactly what. I was excited when the ensemble piece was first announced because a longtime favorite, Ralph Fiennes, and a new fave, Anya Taylor-Joy, were co-starring in it. For some reason, I was under the impression it was going to be a light and breezy dramedy set in the restaurant culture before the trailer dropped. I was very wrong, as this is actually a dark comedy about a sadistic, cult-like fine dining experience. Movies and shows set in the culinary industry have become popular in the past couple of years [see also: Michael Sarnoski’s Pig (2021) and FX’s “The Bear” (2022- )]. But The Menu is both bleak and satirical, equally going at the tyrannical head chef and the self-centered customers.
On a private island near the east coast, Margot Mills (Taylor-Joy) and her date Tyler (Nicholas Hoult) are attending a very fancy, high-end dinner that only the wealthy can generally participate in. The small guest group also includes a has-been movie star (John Leguizamo), his reluctant assistant (Aimee Carrero), a respected food critic (Janet McTeer), her editor (Paul Adelstein), a rich, older couple with marital problems (Reed Birney and Judith Light), and three hipster co-workers (Arturo Castro, Mark St. Cyr and Rob Yang] of the restaurant’s millionaire owner. But it’s discovered very soon the evening might not actually be about the food, but more the guests once they’re all subjected to the strange tactics of Chef Julian Slowik (Fiennes) and his sidekick Elsa (Hong Chau).
(Eric Zachanowich / Searchlight Pictures)
Mylod’s directing career seems to be all over the map. From Ali G Indahouse (2002) to various episodes of HBO’s “Entourage” (2006-09), Channel 4’s original “Shameless” (2004) and Showtime’s remake series of the same name (2011-18), HBO’s “Game of Thrones” (2015-17) and “Succession” (2018-2021) to now The Menu. You can see his supposed brand of humor in the latter based on his TV work, and it’s definitely for an acquired taste [pun slightly intended]. Seth Reiss & Will Tracy’s script for The Menu takes twists and turns that aren’t predictable or particularly cliché. The characters aren’t exactly interesting, but rather amusing caricatures of the privileged community, save for Taylor-Joy’s Margot who turns out to be along the lines of a modern Holly Golightly. For the first time I can think of on screen, we get an over-zealous cuisine fanboy in Hoult’s Tyler, who thinks art could never be as impressive as good food. Colin Stetson’s score fittingly sounds like the sequel to his music for Ari Aster’s Hereditary (2018). There are plenty of gags and foreshadowing that are effectively paid off by the end, and most of the victims aren’t frustratingly stupid, which is a relief.
And yet, I’m still whelmed. While some quickly predicted the main twist of The Menu would be cannibalism, we actually get a murder house situation in a fancy setting instead. Maybe it’s because I watch so many movies, but I’m just kind of over Hollywood using restaurant cooks as metaphors for sociopathy. I’m sure there are plenty of real chefs [i.e. Gordon Ramsey] who are just as overbearing as we’ve gotten in fiction, but I suspect the trend might wear thin soon. Even the additional theme of ‘eat the rich’ in The Menu doesn’t feel that fresh with John Patton Ford’s Emily the Criminal, Quinn Shephard’s Not Okay and Todd Field’s Tár already having similar themes earlier this year. Fiennes and Taylor-Joy are great, unsurprisingly and it’s always a treat to see McTeer and Chau on screen. But The Menu is still lacking and basically a suspenseful Willy Wonka for adults. On a side note, this is the second R-rated movie of 2022 to parallel Pixar’s Ratatouille (2007) [following the Daniels’ Everything, Everywhere, All at Once], which might amuse fans.