The Menu was playing in the movie theater globally just 4 days ago. From my last post, I mentioned that I watched it just as soon as it’s released into the cinema. As a foodie, this movie can not be missed from my sight. What could go wrong in a movie that will talk about haute cuisine in a hell’s kitchen style?. The Menu is produced by the same producer of Don’t Look UP, Adam Mckay and another comedian, Will Ferrel. With their background, you might expect that the movie will make you laugh, but can they?

The movie starts with a scene of Tyler(Nicholas Hoult) and Margot Mills (Anya TaylorJoy)at the dock waiting for their boat to take them to their $1250 fine dining experience in a Hawthorne restaurant. Tyler was supposed to take his girlfriend but ended up hiring Margot Mills to be his companion for the evening. The fine-dining experience is also attended by a couple who are frequent Hawthorne’s customers, a post Hollywood actor who claimed to know the chef of Hawthorne, three snobby tech executives, food critics and her editor. They are all excited to eat at Hawthorne's, which is led by Julian Slowik(Ralph Fiennes), a celebrity chef. Upon arriving at the private island, the scene started to build up indicating that something is up their sleeve. They were greeted by Elsa(Hong Chau) who played as restaurant maitre d’ with her mannerism that was already odd. The group then showed the garden where various fresh ingredients were grown and the smoke house, where they store the meat.

As soon as they walked into a compound similar to Hell’s kitchen style, the door closed. As everyone seated, they were soon served the first course. Each course served has stories tied to Slowik’s life and where he got the inspiration from. Then as the course got into the 4th, it turned grim where one of the sous chefs killed himself and the business tycoon got his finger cut that shocked everyone. Things started to get serious and this slowly revealed Slowik’s motive into organizing this fine dining group and only picking the selective people that had an impact on his life. In the end, there is only one survivor in this murderous yet filled with scrummy haute cuisine. Who can escape this disastrous night?

Throughout the film, with Ralph Fiennes' expression, I was expecting Hannibal style cooking. It’s gruesome and murderous but Hannibal was able to always craft scrumptious cuisine with his “fresh and flesh” ingredient. However, it wasn’t the case. I got the chilling expression but the cooking was normal. They were truly works of art with normal ingredients. So, we can be relieved that it’s not actually “fresh and flesh” cooking style.

In this movie, as a foodie you’d learn to pick up so many pretentious words that food critics tend to use as well. You’d learn that they play with words, are snobbish and can be annoying especially for the chef. As this title mentioned too, this serves as social commentary as each patron was from different backgrounds and how annoying they can be. There’s also the tech workers who were revealed to have slush funds and also how they can threaten anyone under their investment. They also wanted to be treated like royals which can be annoying. Then, the business tycoon with his wife who seems to never get satisfied with the wealth they have and the food that they ate.

It’s not the kind of movie that will leave you with huge impression but this just as good as the movie that talks about food but with a twist.