The Menu

Celebrity chef Julian Slowik (Ralph Fiennes) operates Hawthorn, an exclusive restaurant on a private island where wealthy patrons pay $1,200 each to be wined, dined, and served by Slowik and his staff. Tonight, the guests include foodie Tyler Ledford (Nicholas Hoult), his date Margot (Anya Taylor-Joy), food critic Lillian Bloom (Janet McTeer), has-been movie star George (John Leguizamo), and others. But Slowik has something else in mind, and his plan only gradually reveals itself over the course of dinner, although the presence of Margot, a last-minute replacement for Tyler's original date, throws off Slowik's meticulously and perfectly planned evening...

Years ago, I left a nice, comfortable job to "try to make it as a full-time writer." Long story short, it didn't work out how I had hoped, and something else I hadn't expected happened: writing went from a passion to an obligation. Instead of writing what I enjoyed as a hobby, I turned writing into something I needed to make a living off of. That created a tremendous amount of pressure and took out some of the joy from what I did.

I reveal this because, on a certain level, I think I understand Slowik and his motivations. Here is an artisanal chef who made cooking his entire life, sacrificed everything to get to the top, and discovered it wasn't worth it. The demands of feeding and catering to a wealthy clientele - preening with unearned privilege, nasty arrogance, and unending demands - sapped his passion for his art.

"And to the artist whose work turns to shit inside your gut," Slowik says in a revealing line, "I've allowed my work to reach the price point where only the class of people in this room can access it. And I've been fooled into trying to satisfy people who could never be satisfied."

I won't spoil everything Slowik has planned. Part of the fun in The Menu (2022) is the slow burn. What begins as a fairly grounded story about rich assholes gradually morphs into a pitch-black comedy and horror show. Imagine a conceptual cross between the symbolic imagery and satirical class politics of The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover and the mounting unease and dread of Midsommar.

I describe The Menu as a horror movie, but don't go in expecting to see Slowik and his minions stalking people from the shadows and leaping out from behind corners to slash victims with knives or some monster lurking in the kitchen that needs human flesh. The horror comes from being in a social situation you realize you can't get out of, where you are at the mercy of someone you thought you had power over, and before he does anything else, he's going to make sure you understand why you deserve everything he's going to inflict upon you.

The comparison to Midsommar is fitting. The Menu is also about a group of outsiders who journey to a cloistered, little society with its own rules, customs, and expectations, and the outsiders unknowingly play an important part in the upcoming ritual. Slowik's fanatical followers act more like a cult than a culinary crew, performing every task he demands without question, up to and including self-harm. Even then, some of the guests assume it's part of the show - for their amusement, not realizing the truth until it's too late.

The Menu is very much about the parasitic relationship between the upper class and the lower class that serves them or, as Slowik refers to them, the givers and the takers. That's why Margot throws him off. He recognizes quickly she's not like the rich guests and sees her as a kindred spirit. She's also smart and perceptive enough to notice how much of Slowik's presentation and speeches are designed to insult the other guests, but they're too self-absorbed, pretentious, or pathetic to notice.

While horrifying things happen, The Menu is also a very funny picture. Slowik holds such contempt for his clientele and is rather sophisticated in his bluntness towards them that he becomes hysterical. No matter how depraved the proceedings become, everyone still tries to act like they're in a fancy, high-end restaurant, and that means adhering to social norms and trying not to do or say the wrong thing, regardless of the circumstances. 

Or the amount of blood.