The Menu (2022 | USA | 107 minutes | Mark Mylod)
Although it was filmed in Georgia and initially inspired by a visit to a restaurant in Bergen, Norway (likely Cornelius Sjømat), the new culinary satire the Menu is set in the Pacific Northwest and could easily have taken the New York Times expose on The Willows as part of it’s DNA. With his prestige television background, including an Emmy for Succession, director Mark Mylod has a keen eye for the foibles of the ridiculously rich and powerful. In his feature film debut that crackles with humor and wild surprises, he applies that perspective to concoct a wild and biting commentary on the dark undercurrents of and frivolities of the high-end food world and those who patronize it.
The film opens with a young couple — Tyler (Nicholas Hoult) and Margot (Anya Taylor-Joy) — on the docks, awaiting a private boat to an evening-long dinner at Hawthorn, an exclusive island restaurant with seatings for a dozen at $1450 a head. Dressed in a clean gray suit, he’s giddy with excitement, an foodie who’s been dreaming of this occasion for months, if not years. She, in a leather jacket, combat boots, and safety pin earrings is along for the ride. Although he chides her for considering a smoke, saying it’ll ruin her palette, he beams that she’ll be the “coolest girl at the party”.
Situated on an eleven acre private island, the restaurant ferries its guests by boat and it’s here that we get a sense of who’ll be joining the couple for their evening of culinary perfection. A trio of brashly entitled techbros (played by Rob Yang, Arturo Castro, and Mark St. Cyr), stumble aboard already a little tipsy and bragging about how they’re expensing the dinner even though it’s not for a client. An older wealthy couple (Judith Light and Reed Birney) breeze onto the landing with the familiarity of repeat diners. A renowned restaurant critic (Janet McTeer), showily dressed with distinctive violet hair, appears not have discarded any pretense of anonymity. She’s accompanied by her sycophantic editor (Paul Adelstein) who dotes on her every word and finds a way to agree with everything she says. Finally, a past-his-prime movie star who made his name in stupid comedies (John Leguizamo) feigns worry that his assistant (Aimee Carrero) booked the reservation under his real name, but is relieved whenever anyone recognizes him and provides an opening to name-drop.
When they land on the island, their immaculately composed host Elsa (Hong Chau) guides them around, highlighting the bounty of hyperlocal ingredients, shows them the grounds, and spartan single room open bunker where the devoted staff live when they aren’t toiling. Greeting each guest by name, her calm yet controlling demeanor is ever-so-slightly flustered by the arrival of Margot, an apparent last-minute substitution for Tyler’s previous date. They’re soon seated, however, in the glass-walled dining room where dark wood and stone work nod to the rustic amid the clean angles of Scandinavian modernism. Tyler forgoes the view of the sea, instead taking the seat with the best view of the open kitchen. Although his date is blessed with Anya Taylor-Joy’s distinctive looks, Tyler only has eyes for the army of chefs and their precise techniques. Hoult plays him as a guileless fanboy, desperate to impress the people he’s paying thousands of dollars to feed him and indifferent to the impressions of his date.
Soon, Tyler’s wish is granted when the great chef himself, Julian Slowik (Ralph Fiennes) makes his dramatic appearance with a clap of his hands that’s thunderously echoed by his entire staff as they snap to attention. With a stern and magisterial demeanor, he introduces each course with gilded language, imploring them not to eat but to taste. A few courses of edible artworks follow, each with their own pretentious backstory. Behind the scenes, these marvels of culinary art were prepared in consultation with Michelin-starred chef Dominique Crenn. Snowflakes on a seaweed donut surrounding compressed melons, oysters dotted with molecular gastronomy mignonettes, a freshly harvested scallop atop an edible garden and flavored with crystalized seawater, they all look both spectacular and absurd, but no moreso that the amazing hot cheeto popcorn from the concession stand that I ate while watching. As Mylod’s camera hops between tables, we chuckle at these wealthy idiots, the banality of their conversations, their worthiness to appreciate these frivolous foods.
Slowly, though, incongruities emerge. An older woman sits in the corner drinking alone, a bread course arrives with only the accompaniments and none of the carbs. Hell hath no fury like a foodie scorned, and the withholding of crusty artisanal loaves is the first straw that begins to turn the entitled guests against the theatrical meal. As some start to get restless and resentful over the direction that the evening takes, others convince themselves that this pointed critique is a brilliant part of the show. As the courses become more outlandish and daring, it becomes ominously evident that each course has been constructed with these particular guests in mind and that perhaps “love” is not the most important ingredient on this particular menu.
Secrets are revealed, backstories are filled in, and the tension is heightened. Fiennes plays the megalomaniac chef as one whose steely centered composure is slowly crackling to reveal a long-simmering fury. While Hoult’s Tyler delights in every absurd turn of events, his eyes welling with tears of admiration, Taylor-Joy is in the rare position of being the audience’s surrogate. Being an outsider grants her a no-fucks-left-to-give freedom, and its her unexpected presence that unsettles the great chef most. Their scenes together, from menace to understanding, are some of the film’s most effective.
Although highly stylized, the film does gesture toward substance in acknowledging the many abuses of the restaurant industry while also airing grievances toward the patrons who literally turn culinary art to shit by eating it. Even the best tasting menu experience can feel like a hostage situation as the hours drag on, conversation dries in the gaps between courses, and tiredness sets in. Mylod takes that feeling and dials it to the extreme, and the light skewering of pretension and preciousness veers ever-sharper, more pointed, and the knife work all the more dangerous. As this story without any heroes accelerates to its finale, it’s intense but still hilarious. Like a long meal where you might yearn to dash out early, you’ll really want to stay until the dessert course.
The Menu arrives in theaters on 18 November.
Header image courtesy Searchlight Pictures.