The Menu (2022)

Score: 4 / 5

It's just delicious. The Menu is a pitch-black horror comedy that arrived in time for Thanksgiving, courtesy of versatile television director Mark Mylod and producers Adam McKay and Will Ferrell. Weird, right? I thought so too, until I was blessed with seeing the final product. McKay has very much refined his directorial brand in the last several years, with The Big Short, Vice, and Don't Look Up, and his flavor is still tasted in this feast for all the senses. The filmmakers here are satirizing the snobbish and elite, to be sure, but they're also raising pretty serious questions about the nature of art and the integrity of major artists. There's a lot to unpack, so let's tuck in.

A dozen paying guests are taken by yacht to a private island called Hawthorne, the domain of celebrity chef Julian Slowik (Ralph Fiennes). They've each forked out $1250 for the experience, where Julian and his team harvest all resources from the island itself. Upon arrival, they're escorted around the island to learn about the menu from the maitre d', Elsa (Hong Chau), in a highly theatrical fashion. There are certain things they aren't allowed to see, certain places they can't go, and some questions they shouldn't ask. Elsa's professional demeanor cracks occasionally to show a deeply perfectionistic, even militaristic, passion for her craft. Cuisine, after all, is an art form.

And it's too bad everyone's a critic. The guests (who all have names, but they aren't terribly important) include a food critic (Janet McTeer) and her editor, who helped Julian become famous but whose words have closed many restaurants; a wealthy couple (Reed Birney and Judith Light) who frequent Julian's restaurant as a matter of pride despite not recalling previous meals; an arrogant actor and his assistant/girlfriend (John Leguizamo and Aimee Carrero) who is long past his prime; and a trio of frat boy-type yuppie businessmen. Oh, and of course our main characters: a young snob and foodie fan of Julian's named Tyler (Nicholas Hoult) and his hired escort for the night, Erin (Anya Taylor-Joy). With the singular exception of Erin, everyone else is wealthy and rude, convinced they are just as artful and artistic as the chef himself. Everyone's a critic, right?

Erin is a cynic. She wants to be paid so she can get by, and this excursion is a bit more than she had in mind. It doesn't help that Tyler, her high-strung and demanding "date" treats her like she's a girlfriend to be taught and controlled rather than wined and dined. He sees himself a connoisseur, and the way he discusses food is enough to turn your stomach. Most of the dialogue seems meant to have a similar effect, but in the mouths of such venerable actors, things get really thick really fast. I found myself wishing, by film's end, for a bit more for each character to do. Taylor-Joy, Hoult, and Fiennes take the cake, so to speak, of the film, and they are wonderful. But the likes of McTeer and Light deserved a bit more to chew on.

Similarly, the first half of the film exquisitely sets up parallel tensions that never quite coalesce into a fully satisfying concept. Something is wrong at Hawthorne. The staff are a little too militaristic and sinister. Their bleak, stoic faces occasionally shiver with -- is it fear? Sorrow? We never really know, because they simply follow the orders of their chef. Julian himself eventually graces the dining room with an unnerving energy we've never really seen from Fiennes before. He exhibits an almost Zen-like tranquility while clearly obsessing and fretting over the flow of the evening; it's disarming when he suddenly claps to present each new course. The sound designers bump up the volume on those, making everyone in our auditorium jump each time. Even the film follows his vision for the dinner, adding onscreen text to describe each course, though often in darkly humorous ways.

And yet, despite the tasty buildup and climax -- in which Hawthorne is indeed revealed to have ulterior motives for this particular evening -- the final act leans a bit too far into satire for my personal taste. There comes a point when the film evolves into something not unlike Karyn Kusama's The Invitation or The Most Dangerous Game, but instead of becoming a full-out horror film between gourmet artists and bourgeois guests, they all become curiously resigned to their fates. I won't tell you what their fates actually are, because the dialogue explains everything much better than I could. But it's a little annoying that they all seem to know they deserve what's coming, and while it fits with the satirical purpose of the film, it wasn't quite satisfying dramatically.

Then again, its tone isn't meant to be taken at face value for drama. And so there's much more joy to be had in the ways each dish is served -- increasingly sinister and violent -- and especially the ways Erin fights back against what's happening around her. She's the first to notice that this place isn't welcoming or accessible. She's the first to doubt what she's eating and complain. She decides early on not to take Tyler's shit, and she quickly expands her boundary to include every single person around her. I only wish that, for an ensemble picture, the ensemble had a bit more dynamism beyond its exquisite characterizations. It helps that the whole thing is filmed beautifully by Peter Deming and designed visually within an inch of its life. All in all, it's a menu I'd happily choose to experience again, once my palate is ready.