The Menu (2022)
Directed by Mark Mylod
A young couple travels to a remote island to eat at an exclusive restaurant where the chef has prepared a lavish menu, with some shocking surprises.
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15 films that influenced The Menu
What critics say influenced The Menu
Gosford Park inspires Mylod’s approach for both film and television.
In a fashion like that of Robert Altman's "Gosford Park" (2001), we are introduced to some of these privileged guests: the enthusiastic foodie Tyler (Nicholas Hoult) brings his enigmatic date Margot (Anya Taylor-Joy), who is the only one that doesn't really belong to the group and is not an expected guest by the restaurant staff; a wealthy elderly couple Richard (Reed Birney) and Anne (Judith Light) are Hawthorn's frequent guests; a prominent food critic Lillian Bloom (Janet McTeer) and her editor (Paul Adelstein) think that they contributed to Chef Julian's fame; a failing movie star (John Leguizamo) rants on with his ego and his assistant Felicity (Aimee Carrero); three arrogant tech employees Soren (Arturo Castro), Bryce (Rob Yang), and Dave (Mark St. Cyr), who work for Hawthorn's owner, behave like obnoxious brats; and Chef Julian's alcoholic mother.
Shot beautifully, scripted perfectly and acted wonderfully, “The Menu” is a dark comedy/horror in the tradition of 1995’s “The Last Supper” that uses a clever setup to explore real characters in an unreal situation.
The assemblage has something of a “Murder by Death” (1976) sheen to it, but as courses come out and the texture of the film and the meat served becomes darker, it crosses over into “Saw” territory.
Ed è in territorio simile che si muove in questa sede, non solo per la partecipazione produttiva di Adam McKay ma anche e soprattutto per la feroce critica sociale espressa sotto forma di commedia nerissima, che fa propria l’espressione eat the rich con brio e creatività.
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Seth Reiss and Will Tracy’s script landed on the 2019 Black List, and it’s easy to see why: with its trapped-diners premise and the evisceration of those with power, it’s “The Exterminating Angel” for the franchise era.
The gnawing and annoying scripture that screenwriters Will Tracy and Seth Reiss replicated from works like “Don’t Look Up” and “Step Brothers” self-botches itself due to the headache and vexation-inducing takes on comedy.
Mylod and his screenwriters clearly have a field day experimenting with Agatha Christie-type of mystery, notably her acclaimed 1939 novel And Then There Were None , which involved 10 people stuck on a deserted island.
Except that it wasn’t the kind of whodunit similar to say, Knives Out or this year’s Death on the Nile but more of a mystery drama that explored the grim nature of Chef Slowik’s multi-course agenda in a darkly comic manner.
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“Mulholland Drive” cinematographer Peter Deming’s character floats among the diners, unifying them as a passive collective: As the portents of doom mount, why don’t they fight back more than they do?
D’altronde, l’idea di unire orrore e cibo non è del tutto nuova (si pensi a prodotti orientali come il violentissimo The Untold Story di Herman Yau, ma anche al più concettuale e inquietante Dumplings di Fruit Chan); e inoltre, a ben vedere, il genere possiede da sempre, in sé, quella carica “grafica” e irriverente che ben si sposa con la messa alla berlina dell’asettico, sofisticato e plastificato mondo mediatico dell’alta cucina, così come con quello degli chef assurti al ruolo di guru.