The Menu: A Meal To Die For

 I just returned from watching my new favorite Christmas movie.  Okay, it's not about Christmas, but it is a gift of laughs and horror - and I got to see it Christmas day.  

The Menu is, hands down, among the most uncategorical flicks I've ever seen.  Social commentary, art, black (the blackest) comedy, horror, thriller, revenge . . . all take their places and each part, like the well constructed menu of the title, works in concert to complement the entirety of this, oh, too fabulously insane meal.  

Using the world of haute cuisine to present this morality tale, written by Seth Reiss and Will Tracy, director Mark Mylod skewers the super wealthy and turns it more into haughty cuisine.  In his hands the sublime and the ridiculous walk hand in hand, sometimes uncomfortably for the viewer, but really, quite perfectly.

Hawthorne is the brainchild restaurant of egotistical genius Chef Slowik, a restaurant on an island, with but a single seating of 12 diners each night, at the cost of $1,200 per head.  Naturally, the wealthiest, snobbiest, as well as poseurs and wannabes vie to dine there.  On this occasion, Chef has hand selected a dozen obscenely wealthy foodies, a mixture of old money, food snobs, a bad, narcissistic actor, a  well respected food critic and her editor, and a trio of youthful Wall Street punks.  

Pretentiousness runs in both the front and back of the house, along with insults, rudeness, rule breaking and social faux pas.

It's impossible to really review this movie without giving away critical details that make it so . . . delicious.  Sorry, but that IS the first word that comes to mind here.  The cast is a perfect ensemble, mostly equally balanced but for three performances that must be singled out. 

As Elsa, Chef Slowiks' "enforcer" - guide to the experience and mistress of ceremonies, Hong Chau is a force of nature.  Efficient to a fault, direct and lacking in anything resembling reasonable warmth she is chilling and terrifying in her way.  And an absolute delight. 

Anya Taylor-Joy (who impressed the world in "The Queen's Gambit") is Margo, the put upon and put down date of obnoxious foodie and human cartoon Tyler (Nicholas Hoult).  She's the most relatable character - one hopes - to the viewer.  She is splendid.

Ralph Fiennes as Chef Slowik, turns in yet another sensationally complex role, and, for me, one of the best performances of his career.  The very essence of calm and order he is at once proud yet disillusioned, and, is he perhaps, dangerous as well?  Difficult to say, but oh, what fun he must have had creating this egotistical monster.

As with every other aspect of The Menu, the look, the feel, the sounds of the restaurant, the score and design of the island all serve the Big Picture, and what a gloriously vain, eye-opening picture it is.

A Taste Of Hunger Provides Some Tasty Danish

So, back at home after The Menu - I made myself a Christmas dinner:  A grilled cheese sandwich.  Frustratingly, I had to carefully pick through the now mostly moldy cheese, the result of my power being out for a day and a half and the fridge turning into Bacteria Central.  I retired early to bed to watch another movie, and what comes up as the first suggestion?  The Danish film, A Taste of Hunger (Smagen af sult), starring the vastly underrated Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and the beautiful Katrine Greis-Rosenthal. 

Coster-Waldau plays Carsten, a brilliant Copenhagen chef hellbent on earning - for himself, but also his equally obsessed wife - a Michelin star.  The story move back and forth in time showing the relationship, marital problems, difficulties of family life, and the price we pay, sometimes unknowingly, to achieve a dream at whatever cost necessary.  

It was difficult not to compare, if not the two movies themselves, which are polar opposites, then the creative processes of the two very different chefs, carefully and with great skill finding the right balances in flavors, salt, sweet, texture, color, etc. for the near perfect dishes they create. One element goes out of whack, the whole thing fails.  It's also an allegory for Carsten's life, but just subtle enough not to be beating you over the head with it.

Greis-Rosenthal is Maggi, equal parts wife, mother and muse, but she comes with her own baggage, and while Carsten is noticeably obsessed with their success, it is her obsession as well as her actions that brings about the imbalance in their lives and puts the dream at risk.  

Coster-Waldau makes it hard not to root for Carsten, and one forgives his mildly single-focus with the dream as he tries to balance everything, marital life, being a good dad, and winning that star. His confidence is born from Maggi's belief in him more than almost any other element.  While he comes off fiercely proud, holding himself up as a pillar of strength, that, of course cannot last and when we see things cracking, and Carsten is at his most vulnerable, it is painful to watch.

Katrine Greis-Rosenthal's Maggi is even more complicated . . . and even though nothing like her, I thought of Tennessee Williams' character description of "Maggie the Cat" from Cat On A Hot Tin Roof.  She is desperate, loving, but needy and in her own way, the most selfish character in this story.  Well, not she isn't, actually. That distinction belongs to Carsten's younger brother, Frederik, played well, but annoyingly, and made unlikeable by Charlie Gustafsson.

The middle of the film bogs down a bit with director Christofer Boe and co-writer Tobias Lindholm's script on the fringe of turning an intriguing story into a soap opera, but Boe's direction - here at least - is better than his writing, and he steers the film back on path. If the end is a little predictable (and it halfway is) it's also inherent and necessary to the redemption of these characters we've grown fascinated by.  Or at least who fascinated me.  

Interestingly, both The Menu and A Taste of Hunger - delve into the almost ridiculously over-the-top worlds of cuisine that is too fancy for its own good - with each film featuring an important element of food foreign to its world. In the former, it is a cheeseburger, while in the latter, it is a hot dog.  Seems about right.