“The Menu” (2022) is about twelve people who board a boat to go to Hawthorn Island which is the site of an exclusive restaurant, which only seats twelve customers per night at $1250 per head. Chef Julian Slowik (Ralph Fiennes) has a special evening planned for his guests, but one guest is a surprise: Margot Mills (Anya Taylor-Joy), who is not into all the theatrics of the dining experience. As the courses continue to come out, the chef’s announcements become more unsettling and confrontational. The guests gradually realize that Chef Slowik is less interested in having his guests leave impressed than making a grand statement.
Many people are describing the film as “Midsommar” (2019) meets one of those professional cooking competition reality shows, but unlike Gordon Ramsay’s “Kitchen Nightmares,” there is complete unity and calm as if they are a military unit with the Chef as a general. Like “Tár” (2022), it captures the essence of a certain level of exclusive, expensive cultural experiences that some find pretentious, and others find delightful. “The Menu” turns the mores of that world on its head by exploring the tensions underneath the formality of that world.
All professions require self-sacrifice and endurance of abuse, but anyone who devotes a certain amount of thought to culinary arts would flinch at the prospect of joining the ranks. Cooks risk literally shedding their blood and burning themselves alive to the degree that they may be unable to procreate. If people want to reach a certain level of fame, the stories about chef’s verbal and physical abuse are enough of a cautionary tale to deter any but the most ambitious. If you make it, you may become expert in butchering cuts of meat, but will spend little to no time with your family and friends. “The Menu” suggests that such fanatism to an ephemeral art which requires hard work and isolation could lead to a cult like atmosphere brewing insanity and resentment against those whom they serve that do not share a fraction of the qualities that made them excellent. Fiennes is expert at expressing pain, sorrow, regret and restrained rage with a flash of joy at a memory. He is sympathetic as a man who is disillusioned and depressed at achieving everything that he wanted.
“The Menu” features an ensemble cast that breathes life into the archetypical customers that can be expected to dine at such an establishment. Tyler (Nicholas Hoult), Margot’s date for the night, is fanboy foodie who cares more about impressing the chef than his date. Lillian (Janet McTeer, LOVE), a famed food critic, and Ted (Prison Break’s Paul Adelstein), her admiring associate, consider themselves responsible for Chef’s success. A has been actor, George Diaz, (John Leguiziamo) and Felicity (Aimee Carrero), his assistant who is trying to quit, see the dinner as a rehearsal for their future ambitions. A wealthy, older married couple, Anne (Judith Light, who makes the most of a small performance) and Richard Liebbrandt (Reed Birney), go through the motions and treat the experience as if it was a tedious routine to endure. Three Benetton ad, money worshipping, workaholic, shallow corporate dude bros who work for the restaurant’s angel investor, Soren (Arturo Castro), Bryce (Rob Yang) and Dave (Mark St. Cyr), are unimpressed but see the evening as a notch on their privileged belt. One disshelved mystery guest does not fit the profile of the rest of the guests. As the night goes bonkers, it is funny to see who breaks their role’s expected behavior at a fine dining establishment and behaves like a human being in danger.
Margot is someone who occupies the middle ground between the diners and Chef, who wants her to pick sides. She is the every person, the audience surrogate, who finds Chef’s antics to be insane and over the top and whose tolerance for her date’s behavior is thinning. The dude bros have an intersectional moment of puncturing the Chef’s class consciousness when Slowik quotes a certain famous Noble Prize winner like most people on the third Monday of January, which may be my favorite moment in the film after the Chef asks about one diner’s educational experience. The dude bros brief seething outrage at Slowik framing his suffering as oppression tickled me. Even though Slowik is trying to have a kind of judgment day, this judge is oblivious to his bullshit. There is also a terrific scene with most of the women trying to find a way out of it and sharing a moment of resigned, frank, boozy camaraderie. I loved the reference to Covid.
If I had a problem with “The Menu,” like most films with horror elements, I found myself asking if it was a cinematic contrivance or could happen in real life, which may be a wasteful exercise, but one I enjoy engaging in.
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I could be successfully lured to the restaurant. I counted thirty-two lockers in the corrugated steel bunk for the staff. With years of less than four hours of sleep per night, zero leisure time, isolation and working under a madman, maybe the staff would be brainwashed and lose their mind, but the waiters and guards to the entrance, no way if they did not live there. By the end of the evening, the diners are greeting destruction with a hearty, “We love you, chef” maybe because it is the only authentic experience that they have had in their life, but I do not buy it. No one is sitting still for fire although by then, all attempts at resistance have been thwarted and they feel defeated. I did buy the touch that they would start eating their chocolate hats out of curiosity. So while it makes for a seamless ending for the story and works within the chef’s concept for the menu, it lacks “Midsommar” punch of a plausible, enthusiastic death cult.
Margot’s final stand with Chef is the most sexual moment in “The Menu.” Chef has been trying to satisfy and control her all night, which she never wanted, so she puts on her working hat to leverage her ‘Rosebud’ discovery. Slowik is just another John that she must survive, but she does not even get paid for her labor. Slowik misses his blindspot as an oppressor and victimizer, which he somewhat acknowledges when he cedes the stage to sous-chef Katherine Keller (Christina Brucato). Yes, his staff begged to become slaves, but the fact that he created a plantation and thought it was appropriate speaks to his psychological damage. He is the oppressor.
My active imagination decided to fill in the backstory to the events that acted as a catalyst to “The Menu.” Diners are oblivious to the fact that everyone who works in the restaurant would notice everything so they put together the pieces that Doug Verrick’s shady dealings would eventually put Hawthorn in jeopardy. Slowik and his staff cannot imagine returning to normal life, so they decide to go out on their own terms. And have a literal pyrrhic, vengeance victory. It is possible that if sous chef Jeremy Louden (Adam Aalderks) wanted to kill Chef, Chef would have gone along with it, but Stockholm Syndrome is strong with his subordinates.
