The Menu serves up a terrifyingly tasty satire
The Menu (R16, 107 mins) Directed by Mark Mylod Reviewed by James Croot ★★★★
An excoriating pastiche of foodie culture, pretentious gastronomy and dining out as a theatrical experience, it’s hard to know whether to recommend you watch this dark comedy on an empty or full stomach, because while there’s plenty of mouthwatering food porn on display, you’ll be struck by an increasing sense of unease, as well as chilling visions and scenarios that could well leave you feeling queasy.
Set over the multiple courses of one exclusive degustation evening, director Mark Mylod’s ( Game of Thrones, Succession, Shameless), The Menu is almost entirely set at celebrity chef Julian Slowik’s (Ralph Fiennes) Hawthorne, a restaurant so fancy it has its own island.
Tonight’s 12 guests have paid $1250 for the privilege and every element of the four-hour-andtwenty-eight-minute meal has been planned in meticulous detail by Slowik and his hand-picked team.
Among the clientele are renowned restaurant critic Lillian Bloom (Janet McTeer) and her editor Ted (Paul Adelstein), Hawthorne regular Richard Liebbrandt (Reed Birney) and his wife Anne (Judith Light), a fading Hollywood star (John Leguizamo) and his assistant Felicity (Aimee Carrero) and a trio of brokers (Arturo Castro, Mark St Cyr and Rob Yang).
Then there’s Tyler (Nicholas Hoult) a devoted Slowik fan, so desperate to sample the chef’s latest fare that he enlists the less-thanenthusiastic Margot (Anya TaylorJoy) as a last-minute date so he can keep his booking. ‘‘Tonight will be madness,’’ he promises her.
‘‘Chefs play with the raw materials of life and death,’’ Slowik announces in his opening remarks to the group. ‘‘This evening, you’ll be ingesting fat, salt, sugar, protein, fungi, bacteria and entire ecosystems. Do not eat. Taste. Savour. Relish,’’ he adds, before warning them not to photograph the dishes. ‘‘Their beauty lies in their ephemeral nature.’’
However, while he appears to be in complete control of his kitchen, Slowik is seemingly unnerved by the presence of a guest he hadn’t accounted for. Taking Margot aside, he demands to know, ‘‘if you’re with us, or with them’’.
To say any more would be to ruin the delectable twists and turns cooked up by screenwriters Seth Reiss and Will Tracy. While everyone who sees it will no doubt have a hot take they are more than willing to share, this is a delicacy best consumed cold.
Allegedly inspired by a visit to a similarly isolated, Scandinavian establishment, this ramps up from a seemingly sedate beginning to an almost unbearably tense finale, as the viewer is assailed with recriminations, revelations and increasingly nasty surprises not easily forgotten.
At its heart is a magnificent performance from Fiennes. Slowik is a character to rival Amon Goeth and Lord Voldemort in his pantheon of seemingly blackhearted antagonists. The ensemble though is almost as good. Hoult builds on his brilliant turn as Peter in The Great in creating another self-obsessed buffoon and TaylorJoy (The Queen’s Gambit) is suitably intriguing as the mysterious Margot.
A deserved winner of the audience award at September’s Fantastic Fest after a crowdpleasing debut at the Toronto Film Festival, if you love a little horror mixed into your black comedy, then this is one in-cinema experience you won’t want to miss. Just think twice about what you order at the candy bar.