Reviews Film / The Menu

Now Do Chef John for the Sequel

If this decade is going to be known for anything in film history, it is going to be known for class conscious thriller movies which end with young women in bloodstained shirts, looking back at rich people in chaos. The Menu is the next in a line of such satirical movies as Ready or Not and Glass Onion, and Us, telling the story of the super wealthy getting up to rich people shit and paying the price for it.

I went into The Menu with one expectation: This is going to be a cannibal movie, right? The Menu shows twelve dinner guests going to a millionaire Island restaurant, to be served the meal of a lifetime by a sinister kitchen crew and a maniacally intense chef. What else could it be? I am glad to say it isn't a cannibal movie. It has far more surprises in store than that.

I can't say much about The Menu without spoiling its twists and turns, so I will avoid any further plot details. I will also spare you the tedious restaurant puns that a reviewer might be tempted to make.

The Menu works more on an allegorical level. Even though the film is grounded in a realistic setting, the events are too surreal for it to function as a conventional thriller. There is an obvious allegory about class strife, but there is also a theme about celebrity culture, and especially the celebrity around chefs. There's a lot of inspiration taken from Gordon Ramsey's: Kitchen Nightmares, with its dour chef superstar practically worshipped by line cooks and diners alike. Meanwhile, the extravagant compositions of meals puts you in mind of those huckster chefs who charge a thousand pounds for a gold leafed steak. Our point of view character, Margot, is the only one who is unimpressed by this religious devotion with cuisine, and is thus treated as a philistine and an intruder for the entire movie.

Even without cannibalism, there are plenty of implements in a kitchen that one could imagine being misused to dramatic effect in a film such as this, and yet The Menu is disciplined in that matter. It doesn't become outrageously gory, or go too far into trashy horror tropes, or turn into a complete farce. A lot is left offscreen to the imagination, which I think I prefer in this case.

The Menu is not an especially profound or thoughtful satire, but it is engaging and fun, and the joy comes in waiting, along with the dinner guests, for what is going to be served up next. Damn it.