The Menu (Mark Mylod, 2022)

[DarkImbecile]

Mark Mylod’s The Menu, with Ralph Fiennes and Anya Taylor-Joy

[DarkImbecile]

Having been exposed to its inescapably ubiquitous trailer at least a half-dozen times, I was a bit wary of Mark Mylod’s The Menu, assuming that nearly all the surprises in a high-concept black comedy had already been given away. Turns out I wasn’t exactly wrong about that, but both Mylod’s detail-oriented direction and an effective, efficient script by The Onion alums Seth Reiss and Will Tracy are successful enough in their own right to make it all go down smoothly anyway.

Several plot and character elements are pretty ridiculous and/or oddly pointless if you think about them for more than a few minutes, but things move along at a tight clip and let the actors have enough fun — Nicholas Hoult in particular made me laugh basically every time he was in frame — that I mostly did too. It also helps that the commentary on class and wealth is less centered (and less thuddingly obvious when it does appear) than I had feared, with the focus more on artistry and its appreciation than the obscenity of those who can afford to enjoy it.

Ralph Fiennes continues to deliver when called on to blend aloof intimidation and soul-deep melancholy, while Janet McTeer, Rob Yang, and especially Paul Adelstein are spot on in skewering very particular professional archetypes. My favorite recurring gag (aside from the Chef’s Table-esque spotlights on each course) was McTeer’s elite food critic’s declarative certainty about every dish and event followed by Adelstein’s poseur editor concurring knowingly.

Nothing spectacular, but more enjoyable than anticipated.

[TMDaines]

Having been exposed to its inescapably ubiquitous trailer at least a half-dozen times, I was a bit wary of Mark Mylod’s The Menu, assuming that nearly all the surprises in a high-concept black comedy had already been given away. Turns out I wasn’t exactly wrong about that, but both Mylod’s detail-oriented direction and an effective, efficient script by The Onion alums Seth Reiss and Will Tracy are successful enough in their own right to make it all go down smoothly anyway.

Several plot and character elements are pretty ridiculous and/or oddly pointless if you think about them for more than a few minutes, but things move along at a tight clip and let the actors have enough fun — Nicholas Hoult in particular made me laugh basically every time he was in frame — that I mostly did too. It also helps that the commentary on class and wealth is less centered (and less thuddingly obvious when it does appear) than I had feared, with the focus more on artistry and its appreciation than the obscenity of those who can afford to enjoy it.

Ralph Fiennes continues to deliver when called on to blend aloof intimidation and soul-deep melancholy, while Janet McTeer, Rob Yang, and especially Paul Adelstein are spot on in skewering very particular professional archetypes. My favorite recurring gag (aside from the Chef’s Table-esque spotlights on each course) was McTeer’s elite food critic’s declarative certainty about every dish and event followed by Adelstein’s poseur editor concurring knowingly.

Nothing spectacular, but more enjoyable than anticipated.

I think the ending of the film highlights a cultural difference between the UK and the US.

Spoiler

Taking your half-eaten meal home with you is still not really a done thing in the UK, even in basic eateries, diners or even fast food restaurants. It is still generally seen as uncouth or demeaning for anything but a pizza really.

If the idea was to inspire the chef to go back to cooking such a basic, humble, fast-food dish, in order, to have them reconnect with the joy of cooking for eating for pleasure, then that spell is immediately broken to certain audiences. As it was, I would have expected the chef to add any diner who wanted a doggy bag to his kill list, as per the rest of the night’s clientele.

[Penti Mento]

I think the ending of the film highlights a cultural difference between the UK and the US.

Spoiler

Taking your half-eaten meal home with you is still not really a done thing in the UK, even in basic eateries, diners or even fast food restaurants. It is still generally seen as uncouth or demeaning for anything but a pizza really.

Spoiler

Why do you think this is? Isn't it more uncouth and demeaning to throw away perfectly good food? I can understand if you're "on the go" with other appointments, or on a smoking-hot-about-to-get-laid date, but in general that seems weird.

[TMDaines]

Spoiler

Why do you think this is? Isn't it more uncouth and demeaning to throw away perfectly good food? I can understand if you're "on the go" with other appointments, or on a smoking-hot-about-to-get-laid date, but in general that seems weird.

Spoiler

As an outsider to this aspect of American culture, it has always struck me as pretty damn weird for adults to routinely be unable to finish their dinner and have so much food left that they would even think to repackage it for consumption at a later point. It simply isn’t even a concept in European countries.

[therewillbeblus]

I think the ending of the film highlights a cultural difference between the UK and the US.

Spoiler

Taking your half-eaten meal home with you is still not really a done thing in the UK, even in basic eateries, diners or even fast food restaurants. It is still generally seen as uncouth or demeaning for anything but a pizza really.

If the idea was to inspire the chef to go back to cooking such a basic, humble, fast-food dish, in order, to have them reconnect with the joy of cooking for eating for pleasure, then that spell is immediately broken to certain audiences. As it was, I would have expected the chef to add any diner who wanted a doggy bag to his kill list, as per the rest of the night’s clientele.

Yeah, the way this plays out as a one-note superficial punchline made and performed by Brits posing as Americans for their own cheeky pleasure is the kind of masturbatory ‘laugh-at-your-own-joke’-ness that infects the film with a gross aftertaste to a bad meal (and that eye-rolling allegory is on par with what to expect here!) Not even the sight of Arturo Castro dressed as a s’more can save this, though that was a lovely sight to see and earned a single smile at the finish line. This must be how people who don’t get Ruben Östlund’s work feel, though I never want to watch a comedy with the LB crowd I follow who are inexplicably comparing this favorably to Triangle of Sadness

[ntnon]

Spoiler

Why do you think this is? Isn't it more uncouth and demeaning to throw away perfectly good food? I can understand if you're "on the go" with other appointments, or on a smoking-hot-about-to-get-laid date, but in general that seems weird.

Spoiler

As an outsider to this aspect of American culture, it has always struck me as pretty damn weird for adults to routinely be unable to finish their dinner and have so much food left that they would even think to repackage it for consumption at a later point. It simply isn’t even a concept in European countries.

Spoiler

So the real difference is portion size. The curiosity being that the stereotypical (and increasinly detached from reality) relative girth of the - obese - American vs. a more svelte European would surely imply that the portions are both eaten...

[colinr0380]

"Everyone knows that Love is the most important ingredient"

I finally caught up with The Menu on a television screening and quite liked it, with a few reservations. This is really the ultimate Peter Greenaway film not made by Greenaway, which both helps it to stand apart from other current horror films but weirdly damns it as well in comparison. Whilst Greenaway's films like The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, The Pillow Book, The Baby of Macon etc often revel in that kind of contrast between the heights of culture and the bracing earthy nature of humanity's base nature, there is a sort of lack of 'preciseness' in the handling of The Menu that left me unsure as to whether the filmmakers really properly grasped their subject matter, or perhaps more damningly, were ever actually intending to!

In a Greenaway film the contrast between the high and low culture is often contained in nudity and biological functions, the exception perhaps being in The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover where it is the thuggish Michael Gambon character's crude outbursts in the middle of the fancy restaurant that continually breaks (and revels in breaking) the cultural kayfabe of the environment. The Menu in some ways feels very close to The Cook, The Thief... in that way, because instead of sex and nudity it appears to be using language as the indicator of 'crudity', with all of the guests at the restuarant continually and causally throwing out f-words as part of causal conversation. Although this to me is where the 'impreciseness' comes in, because I was left unsure as to whether that causal swearing throughout the film was actually meant to reflect how horrible all of the guests were, and that they deserve to die for their gaucheness, or just the writers trying to capture 'normal' dialogue? Or whether it is because the director Mark Mylod comes from comedy, which would also explain the flippantly comic tone?

That issue really most comes up with our 'audience identification' character of Margot, and I think a lot of my issues with the film would have been solved if Margot had not been played to be just as sweary and irritating as the rest of the other guests. There was a big missed opportunity there for that character to have been written much more deeply - first as someone excited and seduced by the luxurious event (the exact kind of person that would only ever visit this exclusive restaurant once in their entire life, and even then only by complete accident, as compared to the couple who had been privileged enough to have visited eleven seprarate occasions but could not remember a single course they ate, which would have made that scene resonate even more powerfully later on); then realising that she was a fifth wheel and feeling her sympathies, if not allegiances, shift (as compared to just swearing at the Head Chef on the two separate moments they go intimately head to head); to understanding the activities as an outsider more than a participant in the situation. That basic character arc is there in the final film, but the writing and playing of the character never made me particularly sympathetic to the plight that she had found herself unwittingly involved in, and the gift of continued life that she was provided with by being allowed to leave (which could have been developed into making her the only person who would ever be able to 'review' that particularly emphemeral restuarant experience, and therefore the ultimate example of a food critic!), or even particularly caring about whether Margot lived or died at the end. It felt as if the climax would have worked better if Margot had been a bit more of a warmer and relatable character at the end (which would have made her 'betrayal' by her partner resonate much more as well), who might have cared about the significance and meaning of the experience more than just chomping down on her doggie bagged burger at the end and wiping her mouth dismissively with the menu. Not meaning that she should have been actively complicit with the bad guys (which she kind of is at the end anyway), but more that she had reached a kind of understanding. That lack of nuance in Margot's character was quite a shame and may be the biggest flaw of the film, in giving us nobody in particular to really root for by leaving a sort of air of callous mercenary coldness about its heroine as much as the other guests.

Spoiler

Although it really may be that the ultimate sympathetic figure in the ending is Slowik, getting the unexpected opportunity to create 'real food' again with his simple childhood cheeseburger that he began his career with before carrying out his painstakingly planned, gauchely OTT parody of illusory childhood comfort murder-suicide pact that takes out the entire avant-garde gastronomic scene with him, staff, patrons and restaurant building, prix fixe!

In addition to The Cook, The Thief..., I think that in its comments about service workers-vs-wealthy patrons (which is where The Menu does briefly turn sexual, with "Margot" being revealed as an escort offering 'girlfriend experiences' to her clients, including accidentally encountering at the event a past client who had wanted more of a 'daddy experience') and the way that the artist(e) with lofty ideals is always somewhat in hock to the patron just wanting to buy status by proxy, The Menu is also getting into the territory of Greenaway's Goltzius and the Pelican Company, which particularly focused on that aspect of the act of trying to create a representation of an event being one which simultaneously crudens and destroys it into a specific image or object as well. A status symbol rather than anything deeper and more meaningful.

However, I did like some elements of the film. The perfomances of Ralph Fiennes (a Greenaway alumni himself!) and Hong Chau are perfectly judged (she seems to be having the most fun of all with her character!), and I kind of loved Nicholas Hoult's playing of his character of Tyler as the only one of the guests who actually cares about the food and the, albeit deadly, experience of the evening! His only 'bad guy' behaviour was really just being willing to sacrifice an innocent person as his substitute plus one in order to be able to attend! I loved his playing of his character as the ultimate 'fan boy', shedding a tear at the Head Chef's meaningful monologues, or attentively listening to the wine waiter (which goes completely over our ostensible heroine's bored head). But of course being a fan of someone does not mean that you can actually become them! (And in a way it is cruel to force an appreciator to have to become a creator, since they are two entirely different spheres, with their own distinct qualities. Though the significance of forcing that character to cook whilst being scrutinised intently and sarcastically belittled in the process is to put Tyler in the same position of being constantly judged and having to be at the top of their game that he has been putting the chefs into, especially now with his almost compulsive need to broadcast his photos of the food instantly out to an audience through his phone). In the exchange between Tyler and Slowik over having correspondence in strictest confidence for months in preparation for the event, in a way it reminded me of that real life German cannibalism case, with the one guy willingly participating in being eaten! With Tyler being the Bernd Brandes to Slowik's Armin Meiwes! That's the most fascinating character of the entire film, and at least he makes the most of his final meal! Also tellingly, you have to take out the 'true believer' first, who created the cultural cache and maybe overly elevated their chosen idols from their whole cloth of fandom, before then dealing en masse with the rest who either profited from the interest by inserting themselves into the process for their own gain or who don't really know why they are eating there, only that it is because its 'the best'.

But really the most telling scene in the film is the one in which Slowik introduces his Sous Chef, Jeremy, whose life story he relates about Jeremy's ambition to become the ultimate chef but whilst he is good, he just has not got the talent to make it to the upper echelon. Which only leaves Jeremy the option of, rather than being a creator from a safe distance (though the film does suggest that no creator is ever truly at a 'safe distance' from their art), instead embodying a one-off dish through his artfully prepped suicide. In that sense, to further torture the analogy, much as he may be (arguably) trying to attain the same status, Mark Mylod can only ever be an aspirational Jeremy to Greenaway's tortured Slowik.

[colinr0380]

Going back through some reviews I had been skipping, I do like the Red Letter Media comment that:

Spoiler

The cheeseburger is the equivalent of the "Ever-Lasting Gobstopper" from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory! Only instead of returning the gobstopper proving Charlie's fundamental decency, the cheeseburger here is kind of used as a calculated survival tactic by the heroine!

Although something else I was thinking was that The Menu makes for a weird addition to the 'mad eccentric on an island' horror subgenre. Only instead of having an audience identification figure to experience the island through as we do in something such as The Most Dangerous Game (which gets amusingly alluded to in the "Man's Folly" course!) or The Island of Doctor Moreau, instead here we are much more explicitly sympathetic to the Count Zaroff or Dr Moreau figure's plight!