So quips Margot (Anya Taylor-Joy) in Mark Mylod’s “The Menu” as she waits together with her date, Tyler (Nicholas Hoult), a committed foodie who has landed them a reservation at the distinct restaurant Hawthorne. Like the hole of Rian Johnson’s upcoming “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery,” an eclectic, upscale bunch gathers eagerly on a dock to be ferried to a non-public island.
The film, like their meal, unfolds as a sequence of courses, every more intricate, and sinister, than the remaining. This is such rarified haute delicacies that entries are promised with a view to no longer just constitute meals nation-states like protein and fungi but “complete ecosystems.” A paired pinot wine is stated to characteristic “a faint sense of longing and regret.” Julian Slowik (Ralph Fiennes), Hawthorne’s movie star chef, presides over the eating place much less like a cook than a army commander or, probably, a god. “Do not eat,” Slowik tells the diners. “Taste.” He is, to say the least, not a person James Corden might want to quibble with.The international of best eating has, for a while now, been ripe for satire. And “The Menu” luckily components a heaping plate of it. The film, which opens in theaters Friday, can be aimed toward particularly low-hanging fruit and might in the end no longer have all that lots to chew on. But Mylod, who directed a number of the episodes to “Succession,” brings an icy, stylish flare in any other kind of cleverly staged eat-the-rich comedy that — in particular way to the elite eye-rolling of Taylor-Joy and Fiennes’ anguished artist — remains a completely tasty snack.The screenwriters Seth Reiss and Will Tracy, both veterans of the Onion, bake an amouse bouche of commentaries on class and service industry dynamics into an increasingly unhinged, and bloody, romp that won’t provide too many surprises but continuously hits a satirical sweet spot.
Dining alongside Margo and Tyler are a trio of tech bros (Arturo Castro, Rob Yang, Mark St. Cyr), a movie megastar (John Leguizamo) and his assistant (Aimee Carrero), a distinguished food critic and her editor (Janet McTeer, Paul Adelstein) and a married couple who are Hawthorn regulars (Reed Birney, Judith Light). From the beginning, the question of whether they’re worth of the brilliance they’re about to be served is a pervasive anxiety — a sense that hastens absurdly and disturbingly as the evening wears on.Elsa (Hong Chau), their manual and the restaurant’s manger, actually doesn’t appear to assume so. She deliciously excursions them thru all things Hawthorne, inviting the visitors to look at the cooks in the open kitchen “while they innovate,” announcing dishes like “a breadless bread plate” and usually stealing the show. Her pretentiousness is merciless and grows more and more less subtle. In the ear of 1 complaining tech bro she whispers: “You gets less than you desire and greater than you deserve.”
The identical, perhaps, could be said of “The Menu,” a movie with many tantalizing elements. Of all the purchasers, Margot fits inside the least, some thing that Julian recognizes immediately. His immaculately orchestrated morality play isn’t meant to have a place placing for her. As we are able to see in how she winces when Tyler describes the “mouthfeel” of a meal, she doesn’t worship at the same altar of high cuisine. But even as “The Menu” teeters unevenly in its 0.33 act and matters get gruesomely much less appetizing, its greasy final bites succeed in capturing one not unusual issue of molecular gastronomy: “The Menu” will depart you hungry.