The Menu

Review

I think I unfairly rated this movie the first time I went through it. I expected it to be this like absolutely perfect movie because of reviews I thought I had read and when the movie I got was very obviously not perfect I tore it apart and focused heavily on the things that it did wrong. Rereading my original review, I talked about how the ideas presented throughout the movie were significantly stronger than the movie itself, which in turn lets the ideas down. After re-watching this film, I disagree with this assessment. The ideas remain just as strong as they were the first time I watched this movie but the movie itself lends itself well to these ideas and solidly works to communicate them well to the audience.

The Menu is about a group of rich, elite patrons going to an extremely famous, isolated fine dining restaurant. The protagonist is an escort known as Margo who is invited along as the date for one of the patrons. Once they get to the restaurant, they start experiencing the menu which seems normal at first, but then leads to the guests’ secrets being exposed, cooks killing themselves, and eventually a ritual sacrifice of everyone on the island. In the end, Margo is the only one who escapes leveraging her connection with Chef Slowik as a service worker to demand food to go before escaping.

The Menu has a lot to say about class and art. Once you enter into the realm of fine dining, the food becomes second to the art which can be communicated through the medium of food, the ephemeral nature of the art adding to the experience. Within The Menu, dishes such as the ‘breadless bread plate’ and ‘chicken taco with scissors’ are meant to communicate ideas of class and trauma in memories. The reactions to Chef Slowik’s art are very telling about the way the guests are using their access to this experience as a sort of commodification to elevate their status, as opposed to respectfully appreciating the art or the artist

In terms of class, the movie pushes the idea of the service workers versus the served as the roles flip in the movie. The movie starts with high class guests at a high class dining experience where their every need is catered to and by the end of the movie, the rich patrons are at the mercy of the service workers who suddenly hold all the power, suddenly the customer isn’t always right and instead if the customer is wrong it could cost them their life. The idea that the lower class is functionally built to serve the higher class and that by ritualistically sacrificing them, they can take back the power that is systematically removed from them is a very interesting idea and I think this movie does a good job of presenting it. The fact that the movie ends with the 'lowest class' service worker, the escort, having the most power is a very powerful subversion of class roles and I think this movie has a really strong sense of its message and what it wants to say.

This movie also hints at the impact of love versus obsession on art and the way that obsession for greatness can get in the way of producing things that people can truly connect with and enjoy.

I love the way the movie is formatted, it almost feels like a Rian Johnson film with how intimate the cast is, every character has a backstory and the way the movie weaves those stories in naturally is just perfection. The close intimacy is so uncomfortable given the circumstances and the intimacy that the chefs and wait staff display to Chef Slowik was extremely unnerving given the overall cult-like behavior of the staff.

I think the cult aspect of the movie could have been explored significantly further than it was. We never find out how he indoctrinated them or what their message is. We know about their short-term goal which is to commit suicide by fire in the name of art but that wasn’t the initial thing that brought them together because the sous-chef admits to thinking of that idea. Most other cults like the one in Midsommar are united under a religion which compels them to do the acts they do but in this case there’s no evidence of one such religion. It’s possible that the chefs and staff revere Chef Slowik but while it is clear that he his highly, highly respected for me it never reached a point where I understood that they respected him as some sort of god. I just think this idea is so cool and I love cults in horror movies but it just ended up being predominantly a creepy background element and not living up to it’s full potential which is a shame.

Overall, I think this movie is amazing and I’m glad I took the time to reevaluate my stance on this movie because it’s a lot better than I initially gave it credit for.