The Menu (2022)

High concept films can be fun. They allow for a deliciously rich play with ideas and issues which may not work so well in more literalist stories. The Menu is very high concept; a trendy chef who has reached the heights of bourgeois success runs an exclusive restaurant on a private island that only the 1% can access and one night he invites a group from that class to feed them a dinner that could very well be their last. Sure it is self-consciously over the top, but it is also temptingly inviting. And the film commits to its premise which gives it the stamina to deliver a unique experience right to the end. 

A lot of films with a very high concept have a hard time sticking the landing.  The Menu manages to hold true to its recipe right to the final moment despite needing a great deal of buy in from its audience to keep us along for its sensationalist ride. But for me it sucked me in and won me over, despite a few time almost going slightly off the rails. Its combination of some of the darkest comedy I've seen in a mainstream movie with its commitment to its social commentary and the strong performances of its cast. All the ingredients come together successfully into something to savor. 

The Menu asks us to question our notions of good and evil, and how we are complicit in perpetuating systems of evil. I worried the film would fall into the trap of making this all to easy. I worried it would turn Fiennes and his team into villains making us sympathetic with the group of 1 percent diners that are central to the film's thesis around class exploitation. But I also worried the film would make Fiennes too heroic in his martyrdom. But The Menu successfully resists both. The film does need someone to care about (it is an American film after all) and so doesn't become entirely nihilist. It uses Taylor-Joy's sex worker, a clever and inspired choice in the end, to give us that needed connection while it lets the rest of the cast inspire our feelings of contempt coloured slightly with pity so it can make its point. 

And it does so with a dark bite that is often uncomfortable. Right up to the end it commits to this and delivers a very satisfying ending. However, it is in this that sometimes it goes a little too far. I'm not sure the film got me convinced of all the self-destructive conviction of the characters, especially Hoult's. And there is a diversion in the middle of an escape/chase that just feels rather pointless in the end. 

But outside of these little slips, the film manages better than a lot of high concept films to tell a gripping and disquieting story that makes us sad about who we are and how we live with just the tinge of hope in the way it handles Taylor-Joy's character. And I for one ate it up.  

The Menu

Starring: Anya Taylor-Joy, Ralph Fiennes, Nicholas Hoult, Hong Chau, Janet McTeer, Judith Light, John Leguizamo

Director: Mark Mylod

Writers: Seth Reiss, Will Tracy