Image courtesy of IMDB.
Content warning: mentions of suicide
The Menu, directed by Mark Mylod, is poised to be a cinematic feast. Its narrative is ambitious, its cast is impressive, and its cinematography is simultaneously delicate and striking. Ultimately, however, the film tides viewers over more than it fills them up. Though gripping and provocative, a few too many questions remain unanswered when the credits roll.
Audiences are first introduced to the mysterious, mononymous Margot (Anya Taylor-Joy) as she accompanies endearing, over-eager Tyler (Nicholas Hoult) on a last-minute date. The occasion is an exclusive dinner; the destination, an isolated, private island. Other attendees include an aging actor, a finicky food critic, a trio of Millennial tech bros.
When the group gathers, they are strangers to one another — carefree, enthusiastic, and for now, naive. Several are recurring guests at these expensive, exclusive dinners. For others, this evening is their first visit to the island. It will be everyone’s last.
The film unfolds artfully. After arriving by boat and touring the island on foot, the group assembles for dinner. The dining room is elaborately, intentionally staged. The Menu is a treat because it feels like a true theater production. The arrangement of tables allows each visitor a view of the kitchen, and upon entering, the group is encouraged to leave their seats to observe the preparation of dishes. The kitchen’s visibility creates layers of voyeurism and viewership, not just within the fictional world of the film, but outside of it, too. While the guests watch their food be made, actual audience members watch the characters watch their food be made.
Seated at scattered tables in their respective groups, each guest’s placement has been pre-selected. Dictating seating and spread, Chef Slowik’s (Ralph Fiennes) role as director goes beyond culinary control. He is particular about the group’s consumption, at one point instructing them not to eat. Met with confusion, Slowik clarifies, “Do not eat. Taste. Savor. Relish.”
Slowik prefaces each dish with a lengthy description, over-intellectualizing the food while undermining his guests. The night’s menu includes a bread plate, delivered to each table without a single slice of bread. When Margot scoffs at the pretentious, insulting concoction, Tyler sides with the chef, reminding his date that Slowik is constructing a narrative, even if it eludes his diners.
Dinner scenes are punctuated by still images of prepared food in perfect Food Network fashion. When the dish, accompanied by its name and ingredients, appears briefly on screen, the film’s building tension is expertly cut by the sudden stillness. This strategy remains consistent as the film develops and plot devolves. These moments even elicit unexpected laughter as the juxtaposition becomes sharper.
The film’s ominousness sets in steadily and slowly. It becomes unexpectedly — and perhaps unnecessarily — violent when a sous chef shoots himself in the mouth. The stunt is meant to be exactly that — a stunt put on for its shock value. The moment occurs as the apex of the rambling dish descriptions that viewers and guests alike have become accustomed to. At that moment, the guests and movie viewers alike realize that something is awry at Hawthorn.
Audiences become entangled in the narrative while watching The Menu. From the comfort of a movie theater armchair, living room couch, or laptop in bed, viewers become unwilling witnesses to Slowik’s madness and the characters’ consequent mania. The Menu’s greatest strength is that its criticism is not limited to the fictional world, but extends to its audience. Audience members must make the unsettling realization that they are almost every bit as passive and permitting as Hawthorn’s guests.
As The Menu concludes — or attempts to — it does little to answer lingering questions. Throughout the second half, the film seems to prioritize shallow shock value over plot. Slowik’s outsized interest in Margot goes unexplained, but more glaringly, the chef’s motivation for killing the diners en masse remains unrevealed. Otherwise an original and absorbing film, a few underdeveloped and overlooked details at the end of The Menu weaken its entire appeal.
Like Chef Slowik of his dinner guests, The Menu demands that viewers do not consume the film carelessly, but really consider it. Mylod cleverly implicates its real-life audience in the on-screen horror and comments on class and capitalism without being condescending. Though The Menu appeased my palette and satisfied my taste for an eerie, à la A24 film, it did not fill my belly.