The Menu (Anya Taylor Joy, Nicholas Hoult)

[Gambit]

 

I don't know if anyone here watches MasterChef, but the concept reminded me of this pretentious restaurant the people on that show went too during an episode.

[K]

This is now on Disney+, having made the transition from cinemas surprisingly quickly. I thought it had a strong Succession vibe while watching it, and wasn’t surprised to see Mark Mylod’s name come up at the end. 
 

It’s really good and extremely funny, right up

Spoiler

until the last ten minutes or so, which I thought were a massive cop-out. The film was fantastic when everyone was going to die, because the fundamental unfairness of it all was kind of the point. It was all part of Ralph Fiennes’ plan to do something striking and pure and uncompromising, and utterly inexplicable and wrong. 
 

When Anya Taylor-Joy’s character orders a cheeseburger, and they let her live because she’s more real than the other characters, you start getting into the question of who deserves to live, and the whole thing fell apart a bit for me. None of them really deserved to die, so it feels a bit weird that ATJ’s realness is what qualifies her to be set free, and the lack of the same is what sentences the others to be burned alive. Quite apart from the fact that anyone who goes into a fancy restaurant and orders a cheeseburger has a bit of the Clarkson about them, it felt really pat and Hollywood in a way that the rest of the film didn’t. Also, it’s the ending from Ratatouille.

 

It’s still 100% worth watching, and a very interesting, clever film, but that ending didn’t feel anywhere near as clever as the rest of it. If anything, it feels a bit stupid - the whole idea that “real” people don’t enjoy these meals at fancy restaurants and would rather just have a fucking cheeseburger is just wrong. You could make the same argument about art house films, esoteric music, or extremely indie videogames. I suspect that people who eat in these restaurants, play these games and watch these films actually enjoy them, rather than choking them down while secretly pining for Spiderman or Call of Duty. I like cheeseburgers too, but I don’t see what’s wrong with eating some foam every once in a while. 

[Loik V credern]

Spoiler

I never saw it like that, of her being considered more real and more deserving to live, i think they just really wanted to illustrate how Slowik lost sight of his reason for cooking, her ease in manipulating him showed how flawed his thinking and his character was. There was still tension when she asks to leave whether he'll let her. You're engaged with her surviving because she was cruelly taken along, had killed someone in defence and sounded the alarm. I think after all that for her to die the same way as everyone else, meekly accepting it would have been more disappointing than how it ended.

 

As a film i just think it's fine. I knew nothing about it, not seen a trailer or anything and none of it surprised me, and worse than that, it never escalated, it just peters out and when 'peters out' is talking about a film where a room of people all burn alive while wearing marshmallow hats with chocolate pouring down their faces it should be more epic than it felt. All the cult of the cooks wasn't explored enough. I don't know, in a way it's worse than a film that has clearer failings because it nags at you more at what it's lacking. But i've read some scathing reviews so maybe it being just fine is good.

 

[Capwn]

I watched this a few nights ago without knowing ANYTHING and it was amazing. I went to watch the trailer and yep, absolutely ruins it. Hate that trailer so bad.

[Popo]

I disliked it, for a couple of reasons. Tonally, the setting and the scenario are played straight - the restaurant staff, all working away like you might see in Masterchef - Ralph Finnes po-faced throughout. The dialogue free of any hint of levity. The problem is - the scenario is completely ridiculous, and falls flat as a result. When the sous chef 

 

Spoiler

shoots himself in the mouth

 

without any sense of emotion whatsoever it all felt like a weird dream state where things happen for no reason. Isn’t he scared? Or euphoric? None of that self-motivation was there, it was weird. 
 

The ‘guests’, on the other hand, are cartoonish buffoons, one-dimensional stereotypes - crass Wall Streets guys, pretentious food critic - who don’t fit into the self-serious scenario. It’s hard to feel how the movie wants me to feel about them because they’re such lazy caricatures. Finnes’ grand plan seems completely over the top, disproportionate and weird:

 

Spoiler

In the end, he wants to kill everyone because… that one guy came to his restaurant many times and didn’t appreciate the food in the way he wanted? Because this annoyed him?

 

I just didn’t buy it. If it’s supposed to be a comedy it needed way more satire and levity in the script to make it work. 

[marcus]

I really enjoyed this also, went in blind and it was all the better for doing so.   I think I love Anya Taylor Joy too, she is wonderful in everything I have seen her in so far.

[Benny]

The weirdness and ridiculousness of the scenario really worked for me because

 

Spoiler

It's essentially a direct send-up of how weird and ridiculous and not true to life those shows like Kitchen Nightmares are. It's like an example of what sort of strange cult must exists if those cookery programmes were actually not all heavily constructed and if what happens in them was actually real.

 

[Clipper]

I thought this

 

 

it is a good film just nothing more than that for reasons I mention

 

[Graham S]

I thought this was a lot of fun. About K’s point

 

Spoiler

“ATJ’s realness is what qualifies her to be set free” I thought it was simpler than that. She saw the photo of Fiennes as a burger chef with a beaming face, and reminded him of when he loved to cook for people who loved what they ate, and so was shown mercy. I don’t think it’s really about particular food being more real, just about everything else. A Clarkson ordering a substitution of a cheeseburger for one course would be tortured to death, but this wasn’t that.

 

[pledge]

How much 'horror' is it? Imdb has it as Genres: Comedy, Horror, Thriller

[Graham S]

14 minutes ago, pledge said:

How much 'horror' is it? Imdb has it as Genres: Comedy, Horror, Thriller

It's fine. My wife and I strongly dislike horror, but I'd put it down as comedy/thriller. There is some death and violence and a lot of threat, and I was definitely concerned that the last half might turn out to be more on the explicit horror side than I'd like, as there are definitely feelings of dread evoked before then when you don't know what's going to happen and maybe it would end up as torture porn and we'd switch off, but I didn't find that to be the case in the end.

 

For calibration: Get Out is about as much as I can take (and I only survived that by leaping in to the arms of the poor woman sitting next to me in the cinema (who I didn't know)). 

[pledge]

On 14/01/2023 at 16:42, Graham S said:

It's fine. My wife and I strongly dislike horror, but I'd put it down as comedy/thriller.

Watched it based on this, and agree. The most horrific thing was realising I am the Nicholas Hoult character.

 

One bit I missed:

Spoiler

Did it explain why *all* the chef brigade and service staff had no problems with what "Chef" was doing.

 

[Benny]

34 minutes ago, pledge said:

Watched it based on this, and agree. The most horrific thing was realising I am the Nicholas Hoult character.

 

One bit I missed:

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Did it explain why *all* the chef brigade and service staff had no problems with what "Chef" was doing.

 

 

Spoiler

I think that's part of the whole artifice. It mirrors the cult like behaviour that would have to exist if those cookery shows with all their twisted social dynamics was actually real. They always seem like a few steps removed from a death cult anyway.

 

[schmojo]

13 minutes ago, Benny said:

 

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I think that's part of the whole artifice. It mirrors the cult like behaviour that would have to exist if those cookery shows with all their twisted social dynamics was actually real. They always seem like a few steps removed from a death cult anyway.

 

 

If you think about the amount of unpaid labour and abuse that has gone on with impunity in the highest-end establishments, those environments are real. It's one of the industries that has been the absolute worst for propagating the idea that 'genius' and being a massive arsehole are inextricably linked.

 

But, in the context of the film

Spoiler

It could easily be that they want to be rendered immortal as part of the most infamous culinary presentation of all time, and see themselves as ingredients in something bigger. Also the cult-like deference of the culinary world's old ranking systems too.

 

[Benny]

17 minutes ago, schmojo said:

 

If you think about the amount of unpaid labour and abuse that has gone on with impunity in the highest-end establishments, those environments are real. It's one of the industries that has been the absolute worst for propagating the idea that 'genius' and being a massive arsehole are inextricably linked.

 

But, in the context of the film

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It could easily be that they want to be rendered immortal as part of the most infamous culinary presentation of all time, and see themselves as ingredients in something bigger. Also the cult-like deference of the culinary world's old ranking systems too.

 

 

Well, exactly.

 

Spoiler

in the real world things are often totally horrible and exploitative, but in the fake TV world of those kinds of shows, things are horrible and yet the staff are depicted as still dedicated to their lord and master. I think the film's universe is one where those workers are the ones you see on the TV - seemingly unhinged loyalty to a person that is leeching their lives and joy from them.

 

[womblingfree]

This has been popping up to watch for a while now and not really been on my radar.

 

Half in the Bag loved it though, so I’m in.

[g wings]

On 14/01/2023 at 13:08, Capwn said:

I watched this a few nights ago without knowing ANYTHING and it was amazing.

So a Capwn 3/5 then?

[Loik V credern]

I was listening to the film junk review of this and one said 'I'm getting tired of all these eat the rich films', but there's not many is there? People usually quickly mention Society , which is not great and also old. Recently it's just Triangle of Sadness, Glass Onion and this. One thing Triangle Of Sadness has significantly is a huge leap in direction and cinematography, the tone is more Yorgos Lanthimos than standard modern thriller, which I think The Menu is. Triangle of Sadness is by a real auteur who shapes films around their ideas, it wouldn't exist in any form if the director didn't write it and anyone else attempting that idea would approach it differently. 

 

The Menu would be largely the same if any other director of these types of thrillers made it, like Dan Trachtenberg say. All obvious points but I've made them now and had to look up names to spell them correctly. 

 

Read some things about Ralph Fiennes being nominated for the biggest awards coming up...not likely is it in a sort of horror film. Toni Collette didn't get a Bafta or Oscar nomination for Hereditary I don't think and that was a more grounded intense performance. I love how different Fiennes can be, him in this compared with Strange Days and it's hard to imagine the same brain in inside them both. Just so earthly and raw in Strange Days it's hard to describe, just so free, never being actorly whereas in The Menu it's just such a performance. Or how in In Bruges he didn't really need to be so funny in how he talked but did so anyway. 

[gone fishin]

Watched this the other night with the wife, both of us really enjoyed it. First things, this is absolutely not a “horror”. Yes, there’s a couple of slightly violent bits, but it’s absolutely not a horror. If you’re to going to go into this thinking it’s a horror, I can see how you might be anxious about what’s going to happen next. The horror tag label just feels like a Disney+ having a get out clause for the sort of arseholes that complain about anything (and probably the reason why Adventures in Babysitting is totally butchered on Disney+) It’s definitely a comedy, although quite dark, and a million times better than the ham fisted commentary of Glass Onion (my wife said it was similar to White Lotus, but I’ve not seen that yet).

 

Anyway, the cast are amazing and it’s a great reflection on fine dining and society in general. Only slight annoyance was the accents. I’m not sure Ralph Fiennes needed to be an American, plus there was a couple of words that felt were more British than American. 
 

I’m going to give this one 5 bags of popcorn out of 5, plus one of those little amuse-bouche 

[JPickford]

I guess it depends on your definition of Horror.  I watched this a few weeks ago and I consider it a comedy horror.

[Corrogate]

I seriously wanna watch this knowing Fiennes is in it, but don't have Disney+.

[Graham S]

1 hour ago, JPickford said:

I guess it depends on your definition of Horror.  I watched this a few weeks ago and I consider it a comedy horror.

Yeah I think I might revise my position now pledge has watched it, comedy/horror feels like a better fit with the caveat that it’s easy enough to watch that people like me who avoid stuff with that tag but enjoy thrillers shouldn’t give it a swerve. 

[p1nseeker]

Just finished this having known nothing about it. 

 

Spoiler

Felt like a culinary Midsommer!

 

[El Geet]

9 minutes ago, p1nseeker said:

Just finished this having known nothing about it. 

 

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Felt like a culinary Midsummer!

 

Re the spoiler, I thought that but, disappointingly, that tone kind of gives way to more standard thriller/horror tropes. 
 

As I mentioned in the other thread, it’s really enjoyable nonsense. It really isn’t all that deep and is clearly utterly preposterous fun. 

[elyuw]

On 17/01/2023 at 14:36, JPickford said:

I guess it depends on your definition of Horror.  I watched this a few weeks ago and I consider it a comedy horror.

Yeah I think it's a comedy horror too, although it's pretty much devoid of either really!

[Timmo]

21 hours ago, p1nseeker said:

Just finished this having known nothing about it. 

 

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Felt like a culinary Midsommer!

 

 

Spoilered film is 10 times the film this is! Didn't think much of this at all.

[AlexM]

I went into this film blind and really enjoyed it, 5/5. 

[p1nseeker]

2 hours ago, Timmo said:

 

Spoilered film is 10 times the film this is! Didn't think much of this at all.

Oh I agree! Just some of the themes reminded me. 

[Loik V credern]

On 17/01/2023 at 15:37, Corrogate said:

I seriously wanna watch this knowing Fiennes is in it, but don't have Disney+.

 

You don't torrent?

[Kromeo]

Genuinely surprised about the praise this has been getting, especially about it being called smart. It’s one of the most pretentious films I’ve seen in years; a typical example of a film that has the veneer of intelligence, but in reality is nothing more than fancily dressed convention.

 

There was no actual grand, transcendent theme behind the menu; no moral conundrum that required deep thought; no interesting symbolism, only the laziest food metaphors imaginable. It was merely a simple revenge film that wore Ratatouille’s corpse to appear as something sophisticated.

 

Incredibly disappointing.