At the crux of every basic class divide is food. It is the most essential unit of life, and yet, it took little time at all after the world became “civilized” for it to become the first source of division between the haves and the have-nots. Over the centuries, especially in America, it created the ironic phenomenon of poor people being, frankly, fat (“unhealthy,” if you prefer) and rich people being thin beacons of wellness. Because rich people can afford to sidestep the overprocessed foods that the broke can actually afford. Shoveling their faces with it every day to sustain themselves. What’s more, they would never dream of paying/wasting top dollar for minuscule portions at a fine dining restaurant, the cost of which is more than they make in a month.
With this sense of a historically-rooted class war in food, former The Onion writers-turned-screenwriters Will Tracy and Seth Reiss bring us The Menu. And no, it’s not entirely “coincidental” that the fine dining restaurant they use, called Hawthorn, as their backdrop for brutal “satire” (read: unbridled honesty) is located on a remote island. For the idea that planted the seed of the screenplay arrived when Tracy himself took a boat to a restaurant on an island off Norway (it could have been many establishments, but Cornelius comes to mind, though that’s probably too “gauche”). With that herculean effort (by restaurant-going standards), Tracy started to have some paranoid feelings about being on an island with only a handful of other diners, prompting him to wonder if this was the kind of extreme emotion worth writing about with his go-to partner, Reiss. Indeed, it was. Not to mention perfectly-timed for a market that has eating the rich on its mind. But if one was hoping for another cannibal movie (on the heels of Bones and All), don’t get your hopes up. This is not a literal “eat the rich” film, so much as a mock-their-absurd-self-importance-which-extends-into-food film. Timely, to be sure, for if it has been the year of anything in cinema, it has been the year of eating.
Whether that meant “keeping it down” or not. For there was the now-legendary vomiting scene after the passengers consume improperly-refrigerated shellfish in Triangle of Sadness (The Menu’s less-than-“distant” filmic cousin, complete with a captain that reminds one of our chef in The Menu). Then there was the cannibalistic notion of an “eater” in the aforementioned Bones and All. And, released the same day in U.S. theaters, The Menu. Maybe it’s because, somewhere in the subconscious of the average person, an awareness is dawning about food scarcity. Another food irony (in addition to the poor and destitute often being overweight) is that if this is the year of eating in cinema, it’s also “the year of unprecedented famine,” per the World Food Programme. An organization that also noted of alarming 2022 famine statistics, “The number of those facing acute food insecurity has soared—from 135 million to 345 million—since 2019.” At such a ballooning rate (thanks to climate change, war and a pandemic), the implications of what that could do to further cement class warfare imbue one with Children of Men-esque visions for the future. Visions that no doubt present a certain moral quandary to any chef that caters to an affluent clientele. Just as “celebrity chef” Julian Slowik (Ralph Fiennes, looking his most Liam Neeson-y yet) does.
Part of that celebrity comes from the fact that he charges thousands of dollars for the “experience” of taking a boat to the island where his restaurant is perched (Norway-style, so to speak). And blowhards like Tyler Ledford (Nicholas Hoult) are only too happy to pay the price. Unfortunately for this “foodie fanboy,” Slowik discriminates against single diners—meaning you can’t just sit at a table alone. So it is that he brings along a replacement “date” named Margot Mills (Anya Taylor-Joy) when Tyler’s original plus-one backs out. This resulting in a flinching reaction from the restaurant’s stoic maître d’, Elsa (Hong Chau), and even more of a grimace from Julian himself.
Margot’s presence has tampered with his last menu masterpiece. The one he wants to call “egoless” for the first time since he started his career (which commenced with slinging burgers for the plebes, a detail that Margot will use to her advantage by the end). But to do so would be another form of self-delusion, almost on par with the rich telling themselves they worked hard for the money (try claiming that to the actual working class performing their day-to-day job requirement horrors). Which is why Reiss commented that such a statement was about Julian “wanting to say to himself that tonight is completely egoless, but if we take a step back, how could this monumental night that you want to be your masterpiece, how could it not be ego-filled?”
The only egos that must ultimately be put aside by the end of the night are that of the patrons, including, in addition to Tyler and Margot, food critic Lillian Bloom (Janet McTeer), her sycophantic editor, Ted (Paul Adelstein), Hawthorn regulars Richard and Anne Liebbrandt (Reed Birney and Judith Light), George Díaz (John Leguizamo), a washed-up Hollywood star, his assistant/girlfriend, Felicity (Aimee Carrero), and tech business trio Soren (Arturo Castro), Bryce (Rob Yang) and Dave (Mark St. Cyr). With each part of the movie divided into courses, the food that gets served (or doesn’t… namely, bread—because rich people don’t deserve to enjoy what the poor have no choice but to live on daily) becomes increasingly part of something like performance art. Complete with Julian’s sous-chef, Jeremy Louden (Adam Aalderks), killing himself in front of the patrons to bring them a dish called “The Mess.” What Julian deems, more specifically, as being emblematic of the mess we all make of our lives as we try so hard and so stupidly to please people we’ll never even know (that goes for plebes in addition to famous people) and who will never actually care about all the work we put in to please.
By this moment in the film, it’s clear Fiennes is having the time of his life in the role, and it’s difficult to imagine anyone else playing it. Unlike Taylor-Joy, whose character was originally meant to be portrayed by the aesthetically and vocally similar Emma Stone. Talking of similarities, The Menu’s kinship with Triangle of Sadness is notable throughout (complete with the idea of filming the bulk in one location; in the latter’s case, that’s on a yacht). Both are an unshrinking attack on the rich, each premise toying with what can happen when that class’ money no longer has clout. In both cases, that transpires within the context of an island, where all “real-world” power can be stripped away. And oh, how Julian is happy to strip it. After all, chefs are the biggest power-hungry control freaks of anyone.
As for the original director attached to the film, Alexander Payne, Mark Mylod might have been destined to do it instead by sheer virtue of having previously worked with Tracy on an episode of Succession (one that fittingly centered on a dinner party) called “Tern Haven.” Tracy confirmed that reteaming with Mylod assured further seamlessness on set, noting, “…it’s just great to have someone whose tastes I trust and [whose] working process [I knew].” That sense of trust between writer and director is undeniably part of what makes The Menu come across as such a confident serve.
And what Julian aims to serve up by the end of the night (apart from tortillas etched with some highly specific and incriminating memories of each patron) is a clean, simple dose of karmic balance. With the rich even getting off more than just a little on being abused by the climax. For it’s almost as though they’ve been surrounded by obsequious “yes” people their entire lives and they just want to experience Truth for once.
To this end, Margot herself is the antithesis of a sycophant for Julian, undermining him at every turn with her “that don’t impress me much” expressions and commentary about the meal. It is through this “tell” that Julian can surmise she is not “one of them.” She bears the mark of someone who serves, not someone who is served; therefore, she is but a spy among the rich’s kind as opposed to being of their kind. And so, by the end of the night, per Julian’s insistence, she must take her rightful place on the side of the “givers,” not the “takers.” Or the cooks and the eaters, as it were.
