The Menu Review: Where a table setting serves as haute class warfare
In the vein of popular recently released films and shows that deal with #richpeopleproblems, in “The Menu” we have a film where the Uber rich are confronted with their greatest affront: themselves.
In The Menu (HBO Max) by director Mark Mylod (The Big White, Ali G Indahouse) and produced by Adam McKay and Will Ferrell, really rich people that you’re not supposed to like, pay exorbitant amounts of money ($2500) for exclusive access to a posh restaurant on a self-sufficient island where Ralph Fiennes is an unhinged chef, about to unleash his latest concept in dining.
Warning: This is a horror/thriller film. While it shouldn’t induce seizures, it will provoke loud intermittent shrieks based on unanticipated story shifts.
Before I dive into more of my observations on this film, something needs to be stated.
We’re having a moment in prestige television where there’s an increasingly popular genre of film and TV (Succession, The White Lotus, The Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, heck even Emily in Paris) dedicated to hating on really rich people, their vanity, and their almost prideful ignorance when it comes to the world around them and anyone not in their tax bracket. The cultural clashes that unleash onscreen and the “breaking bad,” “go for broke”-ness aspects to the star gazing compel us to watch these characters with almost a raptured attention, deriving a near sadistic, voyeuristic pleasure in their pain, witnessing a world, where dog eat dog behavior is de rigueur. Of all the groups that are up for poking fun at in an extreme way and acceptable to gut, these Ritchie Riches are an easy target to satirize for mass consumption. Still, some believe, creators don’t go far enough and sharper teeth are needed..
Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s sit with The Menu for a bit. There are a number of courses for us to get through, but I’ll put this on 1.5x speed. That should be sufficient.
Warning: Spoilers ahead.
The Amuse Bouche & First Course: Flaky crumbs, gelatinous, liquidy food, no bread, and plenty of intoxicants
The set up introduces us to our restaurant patrons en route, via boat, to Slowik’s island where his restaurant, Hawthorne, resides. On the guest list, we have the tech bro trio (already drunk when they get on the boat); the Boomer Hawthorne regulars (Judith Light is one of them); the arrogant foodie (About a Boy’s and The Great’s Nicholas Hoult) who knows more about the food being served than anyone and his date, a sex worker (Margot/Erin played by The Queen’s Gambit and Emma actress Anya Taylor-Joy); a fading actor (John Leguizamo) trying to reclaim his stardom and find relevance, and his soon-to-be ex-girlfriend; and a pompous restaurant critic Lillian Bloom (Janet McTeer) and her magazine editor.
From the get-go there are plenty of mentions both by Slowik and his henchwoman/maitre d Elsa (Hong Chau) that these specific people were invited to the restaurant for a singular purpose and with the exception of Taylor-Joy’s Margot/Erin, everyone who should be there is there.
Alas, this tension of not having complete order over his menu and the plan for the night which is triggered by Taylor-Joy’s unexpected attendance, presents cracks in Slowik’s otherwise pristine veneer. Taylor-Joy’s presence unnerves the obsessively controlling Slowik, who doesn’t like surprises, and he’s forced to make certain decisions but first, he tries to uncover who she really is. She doesn’t make it easy and you’re not quite sure where the dalliance will go, once it’s clear what’s really on the menu for the evening.
As a service industry person, Slowik recognizes, a fellow “giver” in Margot which makes him more sympathetic to her. The movie’s pacing (it’s purposely slow and tense at times just to up the ominous vibe ante), the feverish chef-ing going on in the kitchen where all the sous chefs act like automatons and serve in direct contrast to the “takers” aka the patrons who are complaining about their lack of bread to accompany their emulsions, are among the film’s strengths. Food is meant to be experienced on all sensory levels, much like the presentation of the film (visual, touch, taste, sound (the chef’s clap breaking the noise) and the menu’s execution needs to be flawless.
Per Chef Julian, “Bread has always been the food of the common man. So tonight you get no bread.” I mean, in all fairness, I would be pissed too. I’m always the first to ask for bread at any restaurant and seethe when that doesn’t happen.
Second, Third, and Fourth Course: A little more sustenance in the way of actual meat, piercing objects, and splatter
From the get-go, we understand from Chef Slowik’s monologue in introducing the menu to the guests that this experience is not about eating as he implores his diners: “Do not eat. Taste. Savor. Relish. Consider every morsel…” This is why Taylor-Joy’s Margot asking for a cheeseburger at one point is so on point and perfect, mostly because she’s the only one to call BS on Slowik’s non-existent food experience. And also because who hasn’t felt this in the presence of a fine dining experience. The rest of the Hawthorne diners just go along with it all - the pretentiousness of the food and the murderous “acting” which isn’t really acting at all. The main courses also give way to the actual loss of life and amp up the “Did that really just happen?” stakes, but since you really don’t care about anyone in this movie except Margot, it’s all good.
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The best moments of the film can be found in a common, shared understanding of the extremes of class envy and Slowik’s self-annointed power to be a judge and executioner of what’s acceptable and what warrants end of life, termination. This is his restaurant, after all. At one point, Leguizamo’s date, Felicity, is bargaining for her life and Slowik is trying to hear her out, even though it’s clear he’s made his decision and nothing is diverting from the menu here.
Slowik: "Where did you go to college?"
Felicity: "Brown."
Slowik: "Did you have any student loans?"
Felicity: "No"
Slowik: "I'm sorry, you're dying"
The absurdity of moments like these pit against the gravity of the diners’ dangling mortality serves to keep this movie afloat. At one point, Slowik even says to his “captors,” that they could have risen up and probably escaped if they wanted to. They seem helpless and undeserving almost.
The Final Course - Dessert: S’mores (and not your Boys or Girls Scout kind, either)
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A gripe here: I wished that Slowik was a bit more of a redeemable character and had a more justified context for his condemnation and murder of his diners. (more of a “And then there were none” Agatha Christie style reckoning if you like). Leguizamo’s offense is starring in a shlocky film that Slowik wasted his day off watching and regrets it? Feeding his investor/funder/backer to the shark-infested waters because he hates who he’s become as this unhappy chef and sees investor greed as a bad thing is extreme, but again this is where the line between this movie taking itself too seriously and it being absurd lies. I’ll take levity and swallow heaping mouthfuls of the ridiculous any day. Just bring me bread. Or I will go postal.
I finally saw it! Now I can read your post and give my impression.
I really enjoyed it and loved seeing Ray Fiennes in a role he could chew the scenery in. And the way it built up the batshit-crazy slowly, and then, with the scene with the sous chef, ramp it up fast.
I found that the ending worked better in theory than in practice. I'm not sure why it felt flat to me. Maybe it ramped up the tension too fast and then had too much time left. It might have been a tonal thing too. It seemed to up the dark comedy more in the 2nd half, which is often the opposite in movies like this. Usually the dark comedy tends to give way to just dark when the plot becomes more the foreground.
I will say that the scene where they make Nicholas Hault cook was one of my favorites.
Overall I really liked it. I'm glad they didn't try to make it a "message" film and let it be an entertaining nut-fest. Other than the message that cheeseburgers (and I'll add impossible burgers to this) are what makes the majority of humans the happiest.
I loved The Menu! I don't watch/read a lot of horror. But when I do, I love the sort of horror story where I'm like, "This story seems normal, how is this horror?" Then BAM, something horrific happens. Steven King books can be like this. And the book "The Only Good Indians" is like that. In this regard, horror is very similar to comedy, in that good comedy can follow a story pattern we all recognize as reasonable, then suddenly the next step in the pattern is turned up to absurdity and you laugh. I'm sure this is not a revolutionary observation, but since I read/watch a lot of comedy but not a lot of horror, this pattern stuck out to me when watching The Menu.