the menu movie reviews

Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors.

Now streaming on:

The obscenely wealthy are having a tough time at the movies lately. Last month, Ruben Östlund stuck a bunch of them on a luxury yacht and watched them projectile vomit all over each other in “ Triangle of Sadness .” Next week, Rian Johnson will stick a bunch of them on a private Greek island to watch them wonder who among them is a killer in “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.”

But this week, members of the extreme 1% just get stuck—as in skewered, and grilled—in “The Menu.” Director Mark Mylod satirizes a very specific kind of elitism here with his wildly over-the-top depiction of the gourmet food world. This is a place where macho tech bros, snobby culture journalists, washed-up celebrities, and self-professed foodies are all deluded enough to believe they’re as knowledgeable as the master chef himself. Watching them preen and try to one-up each other provides much of the enjoyment in the sharp script from Seth Reiss and Will Tracy .

But the build-up to what’s happening at this insanely expensive restaurant on the secluded island of Hawthorne is more intriguing than the actual payoff. The performances remain prickly, the banter deliciously snappy. And “The Menu” is always exquisite from a technical perspective. But you may find yourself feeling a bit hungry after this meal is over.

An eclectic mix of people boards a ferry for the quick trip to their storied destination. Chef Slowik’s fine-tuned, multi-course dinners are legendary—and exorbitant, at $1,250 a person. “What, are we eating a Rolex?” the less-than-impressed Margot ( Anya Taylor-Joy ) quips to her date, Tyler ( Nicholas Hoult ), as they’re waiting for the boat to arrive. He considers himself a culinary connoisseur and has been dreaming of this evening for ages; she’s a cynic who’s along for the ride. They’re gorgeous and look great together, but there’s more to this relationship than initially meets the eye. Both actors have a keen knack for this kind of rat-a-tat banter, with Hoult being particularly adept at playing the arrogant fool, as we’ve seen on Hulu’s “The Great.” And the always brilliant Taylor-Joy, as our conduit, brings a frisky mix of skepticism and sex appeal.

Also on board are a once-popular actor ( John Leguizamo ) and his beleaguered assistant ( Aimee Carrero ); three obnoxious, entitled tech dudes ( Rob Yang , Arturo Castro , and Mark St . Cyr); a wealthy older man and his wife ( Reed Birney and Judith Light ); and a prestigious food critic ( Janet McTeer ) with her obsequious editor ( Paul Adelstein ). But regardless of their status, they all pay deference to the star of the night: the man whose artful and inspired creations brought them there. Ralph Fiennes plays Chef Slowik with a disarming combination of Zen-like calm and obsessive control. He begins each course with a thunderous clap of his hands, which Mylod heightens skillfully to put us on edge, and his loyal cooks behind him respond in unison to his every demand with a spirited “Yes, Chef!” as if he were their drill sergeant. And the increasingly amusing on-screen descriptions of the dishes provide amusing commentary on how the night is evolving as a whole.

Of these characters, Birney and Light’s are the least developed. It’s particularly frustrating to have a performer of the caliber of Light and watch her languish with woefully little to do. She is literally “the wife.” There is nothing to her beyond her instinct to stand by her man dutifully, regardless of the evening’s disturbing revelations. Conversely, Hong Chau is the film’s MVP as Chef Slowik’s right-hand woman, Elsa. She briskly and efficiently provides the guests with a tour of how the island operates before sauntering among their tables, seeing to their every need and quietly judging them. She says things like: “Feel free to observe our cooks as they innovate” with total authority and zero irony, adding greatly to the restaurant’s rarefied air.

The personalized treatment each guest receives at first seems thoughtful, and like the kind of pampering these people would expect when they pay such a high price. But in time, the specifically tailored dishes take on an intrusive, sinister, and violent tone, which is clever to the viewer but terrifying to the diner. The service remains rigid and precise, even as the mood gets messy. And yet—as in the other recent movies indicting the ultra-rich—“The Menu” ultimately isn’t telling us anything we don’t already know. It becomes heavy-handed and obvious in its messaging. Mind-boggling wealth corrupts people. You don’t say.

But “The Menu” remains consistently dazzling as a feast for the eyes and ears. The dreamy cinematography from Peter Deming makes this private island look impossibly idyllic. The sleek, chic production design from Ethan Tobman immediately sets the mood of understated luxury, and Mylod explores the space in inventive ways, with overhead shots not only of the food but also of the restaurant floor itself. The Altmanesque sound design offers overlapping snippets of conversation, putting us right in the mix. And the taunting and playful score from Colin Stetson enhances the film’s rhythm, steadily ratcheting up the tension.

It’s a nice place to visit—but you wouldn’t want to eat there.

Now playing in theaters. 

Christy Lemire

Christy Lemire is a longtime film critic who has written for RogerEbert.com since 2013. Before that, she was the film critic for The Associated Press for nearly 15 years and co-hosted the public television series "Ebert Presents At the Movies" opposite Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, with Roger Ebert serving as managing editor. Read her answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

Now playing

Girls State

Asleep in My Palm

Tomris laffly.

The Animal Kingdom

Monica castillo.

You'll Never Find Me

Sheila o'malley.

The Old Oak

Matt zoller seitz, film credits.

The Menu (2022)

Rated R for strong/disturbing violent content, language throughout and some sexual references.

107 minutes

Ralph Fiennes as Chef Slowik

Anya Taylor-Joy as Margot

Nicholas Hoult as Tyler

Hong Chau as Elsa

Janet McTeer as Lillian Bloom

Judith Light as Anne

John Leguizamo as Movie Star

Rob Yang as Bryce

Mark St. Cyr as Dave

Reed Birney as Richard

Aimee Carrero as Felicity

Arturo Castro as Soren

Cinematographer

• Peter Deming
• Christopher Tellefsen
• Colin Stetson

Latest blog posts

The Zellner Brothers Take a Walk in the Woods with Sasquatch Sunset

The Scene That Clint Eastwood Cut to Make Unforgiven a Classic

Ape Shall Not Kill Ape: A Look at the Entire Apes Franchise

​Criterion Celebrates the Films That Forever Shifted Our Perception of Kristen Stewart​

Advertisement

Supported by

Critic’s Pick

‘The Menu’ Review: Eat, Pray, Run!

Ralph Fiennes and Anya Taylor-Joy face off in this pitch-black satire of class and high-end dining.

• Share full article

By Jeannette Catsoulis

There is nothing subtle about “The Menu,” but that’s a large part of its charm. Like Hawthorn, the exclusive upscale restaurant where most of the action takes place, this brutal satire of class division — viewed through the lens of high-end gorging — is ruthlessly focused and gleamingly efficient. And by unabashedly flaunting its crowd-pleasing ambitions, the script (by Seth Reiss and Will Tracy) cheekily skirts the very pretentiousness it aims to skewer.

At Hawthorn, set on its own island in the Pacific Northwest, every dish comes with a side of ego and a lecture on its provenance by Julian Slowik (Ralph Fiennes), a rock-star chef with a drill-sergeant’s demeanor. In his dining room, mere feet from an army of obsequious underlings, drooling one-percenters have each dropped $1,250 to wrap their gums around Slowik’s fabled tasting menu. Among them are a star-struck foodie (Nicholas Hoult) and his last-minute date, Margot (Anya Taylor-Joy); an arrogant restaurant critic (Janet McTeer); three odious tech workers (Rob Yang, Arturo Castro and Mark St. Cyr); and a fading movie star (John Leguizamo) hoping to pitch a culinary travel show. All except Margot have been carefully chosen, and all are about to become players in Slowik’s elaborate opera of humiliation, self-loathing and revenge.

From amuse-bouche to dessert, Slowik’s creations — and the diners’ punishments — grow steadily more bizarre and threatening. In service to a gleefully malicious tone, Mark Mylod’s direction is cool, tight and clipped, the actors slotting neatly into characters so unsympathetic we become willing accessories to their suffering. Fiennes is fabulous as a man so determined to turn food into art that he’s forgotten its very purpose; his disgust for the act of eating has long extinguished any joy in cooking.

“Even your hot dishes are cold,” spits Margot, the audience surrogate and the first to challenge the insult embedded in each course, like the “bread plate” with no bread. Intrigued by her working-class wiliness, Slowik is unsettled: He can see that she’s willing to take him on.

Whisking splashes of horror into culinary comedy (“Don’t touch the protein, it’s immature,” admonishes the forbidding hostess during a smokehouse tour), “The Menu” is black, broad and sometimes clumsy, attacking its issues more often with cleaver than paring knife. Yet everyone is having such a good time, it’s impossible not to join them. The movie’s eye might be on haute cuisine, but its heart is pure fish and chips.

The Menu Rated R for slaying, suicide and exuberant oversaucing. Running time: 1 hour 46 minutes. In theaters.

Explore More in TV and Movies

Not sure what to watch next we can help..

Maya Rudolph and Kristen Wiig have wound in and out of each other’s lives and careers for decades. Now they are both headlining an Apple TV+ comedy of wealth and status .

Nicholas Galitzine, known for playing princes and their modern equivalents, hopes his steamy new drama, “Mary & George,” will change how Hollywood sees him .

Ewan McGregor and Mary Elizabeth met while filming “Fargo” in 2017. Now married, they have reunited onscreen in “A Gentleman in Moscow.”

A reboot of “Gladiators,” the musclebound 1990s staple, has attracted millions of viewers in Britain. Is appointment television back ?

If you are overwhelmed by the endless options, don’t despair — we put together the best offerings   on Netflix , Max , Disney+ , Amazon Prime  and Hulu  to make choosing your next binge a little easier.

Sign up for our Watching newsletter  to get recommendations on the best films and TV shows to stream and watch, delivered to your inbox.

• International edition
• Australia edition
• Europe edition

The Menu review – revenge is served hot in delicious haute cuisine satire

A bunch of ultra-wealthy foodies get more than they bargained for in this riotous black comedy starring Ralph Fiennes and Anya Taylor-Joy

Succession director Mark Mylod has an acute eye for the absurdity of extreme privilege. So the preposterous world of haute cuisine is almost too easy a target: not so much about eating as worshipping at the altar of the chef’s ego. The chef in this case is Ralph Fiennes , sporting joylessly immaculate whites and an expression of patrician displeasure. The guests at his culinary temple, run with a cult-like devotion by the ferocious front of house manager Elsa (Hong Chau), are a tasteless bunch: a trio of braying investment bankers, a needy movie star, a miserable wealthy couple trying to buy some meaning into their lives. And then there’s Margot ( Anya Taylor-Joy ), the last-minute date of foodie fanboy Tyler ( Nicholas Hoult ). Margot is more interested in sneaking a cigarette than fawning over chef’s sous vide technique. She is the one errant ingredient in the evening’s menu.

Subtle it’s not, but it’s maliciously entertaining. It turns out that revenge on the ultra-wealthy is a dish best seared over a naked flame.

• Comedy films
• The Observer
• Ralph Fiennes
• Nicholas Hoult
• Anya Taylor-Joy

Comments (…)

Most viewed.

The Menu Review

Ralph fiennes shines in a darkly comedic thriller about haute cuisine..

This is an advanced review out of the Toronto International Film Festival, where The Menu made its world premiere. It will hit theaters on Nov. 18, 2022.

The Menu is a slow-cooked meal with a murderous kick: a delectable full course with a bloody and comedic twist, several surprises along the way, a delightful cast led by Ralph Fiennes at his best, some gorgeous presentation, and a sweet and explosive dessert that sticks with you long after your bill arrives. It also happens to be a bloody good time.

It’s set in the world of haute cuisine, where rich people go to the most expensive place that deconstructs basic meals into senseless plates just for the sake of it, and the guests don't appreciate either the food or the staff because they're just there to show their class and station. We're talking about the type of restaurant that offers breadless bread plates, or courses consisting of a couple of leaves served on a big rock and covered with sea foam because it represents … something, whatever.

That is the world in which the renowned Chef Slowik (Fiennes) finds himself trapped in. This is a man who genuinely loves what he does – who has loved making food for others for years – but now is forced to cater to rich assholes who don't give a single crap about the food they're consuming. He leads the restaurant on the 12-acre Hawthorn Island, a place so exclusive the employees live in bunk beds in a warehouse smaller than a New York apartment. They slaughter, fish, skin, harvest, prepare, and cook every ingredient locally on the island day after day, catering only to 12 people a night, with tickets costing $1250 a head.

For tonight's distinguished guest list, we meet Tyler (Nicholas Hoult), a devout foodie who worships at the altar of Chef Slowik, recognizes every pretentious term Chef mentions, and uses words like "mouthfeel." He is accompanied by his new date Margot (Anya Taylor-Joy), who simply does not care about the pretense and the stupid deconstructions, but is here for a good meal. Also arriving at the island is a famous actor in decline (John Leguizamo) and his assistant; restaurant critic Lillian (Janet McTeer), who loves giving pretentious descriptors to food (like "Thalassic") and her boot-licking magazine editor Ted (Paul Adelstein); a rich couple that considers themselves regulars at the restaurant (Judith Light and Reed Birney); and three tech bros who are objectively the worst. Soon enough, they realize their fancy meal comes with a very big bill, especially when the bodies start dropping.

What's the best Ralph Fiennes role?

If you’re thinking this sounds a bit like a Knives Out movie, you're not wrong. Though not really a whodunit, there is an element of mystery for a good chunk of The Menu. More importantly, writers Seth Reiss and Will Tracy relish in sprinkling the film with a healthy serving of social commentary about consumerism and class warfare. Director Mark Mylod ( Succession ) makes it a point to really close in on how each of the guests treats the staff in order to drive home how awful they are.

Though the cast is all-around great, without a doubt the standouts are the electric Fiennes as Chef and Hong Chau ( Watchmen , the upcoming The Whale) as maitre d' Elsa. Chau plays an almost cartoony supervillain; an elegant, sinister presence that makes you feel warm and welcome while telling you the exact manner your children will die. As for Fiennes, it’s about time someone let the Oscar nominee be the wicked comedic star he was always destined to be, as he brings Chef's soft-spoken, unblinking perfectionism and threatening stare to life in a way that is unpredictable yet predictably captivating. He exudes authority to the point that even as he lays out what is going to happen, no one dares make a move. This is a meticulous man who plans everything to the smallest detail, even if that detail hides deep pains and frustration.

And – drawing another similarity to Knives Out – The Menu is hilarious. The horror and gore are more aftertastes than prominent dishes, but the thrills and sinister humor bring to mind the wicked fun The Death of Stalin.

If there's one big negative it’s that, unlike its open kitchen, the script leaves backstories and explanations mostly unexplored. We know what is happening, but not why, let alone how it was planned out. Thankfully, the story picks up steam quickly enough and offers so much eye candy to make you forget about your questions.

The Biggest Upcoming Movies and Release Dates | Fall Movie Preview 2022

Speaking of eye candy, The Menu looks gorgeous. Shot like the fanciest of Netflix food documentaries, and presenting each dish with care, detail, and hilarious on-screen text explaining what's in it, this is not a movie you should watch on an empty stomach — that, along with the descent into horror, is not unlike the exquisite Hannibal . Likewise, the score brings a level of elegance that elevates this meal to the highest of high ends. The result is a heavy meal that leaves you satisfied, with a big grin on your face, and a desire for seconds.

The Menu is a hilariously wicked thriller about the world of high-end restaurants, featuring a stellar cast led by a phenomenal Ralph Fiennes, some of the most gorgeous food shots in recent film history, and accompanied by a delicious hors d'oeuvres sampling of commentary on the service industry, class warfare, and consumerism.

In This Article

More Reviews by Rafael Motamayor

Ign recommends.

Log in or sign up for Rotten Tomatoes

Trouble logging in?

By continuing, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes.

Email not verified

Let's keep in touch.

Sign up for the Rotten Tomatoes newsletter to get weekly updates on:

• Upcoming Movies and TV shows
• Trivia & Rotten Tomatoes Podcast
• Media News + More

By clicking "Sign Me Up," you are agreeing to receive occasional emails and communications from Fandango Media (Fandango, Vudu, and Rotten Tomatoes) and consenting to Fandango's Privacy Policy and Terms and Policies . Please allow 10 business days for your account to reflect your preferences.

OK, got it!

Movies / TV

No results found.

• What's the Tomatometer®?
• Login/signup

Movies in theaters

• Opening this week
• Top box office
• Coming soon to theaters
• Certified fresh movies

Movies at home

• Netflix streaming
• Prime Video
• Most popular streaming movies
• What to Watch New

Certified fresh picks

• Monkey Man Link to Monkey Man
• The First Omen Link to The First Omen
• The Beast Link to The Beast

New TV Tonight

• Chucky: Season 3
• Mr Bates vs The Post Office: Season 1
• Fallout: Season 1
• Franklin: Season 1
• Dora: Season 1
• Good Times: Season 1
• Beacon 23: Season 2

Most Popular TV on RT

• Ripley: Season 1
• 3 Body Problem: Season 1
• Sugar: Season 1
• Parasyte: The Grey: Season 1
• A Gentleman in Moscow: Season 1
• Shōgun: Season 1
• The Regime: Season 1
• We Were the Lucky Ones: Season 1
• The Gentlemen: Season 1
• Best TV Shows
• Most Popular TV
• TV & Streaming News

Certified fresh pick

• Ripley Link to Ripley
• All-Time Lists
• Binge Guide
• Comics on TV
• Five Favorite Films
• Video Interviews
• Weekend Box Office
• Weekly Ketchup
• What to Watch

Best Movies of 2024: Best New Movies to Watch Now

25 Most Popular TV Shows Right Now: What to Watch on Streaming

What to Watch: In Theaters and On Streaming

Awards Tour

CinemaCon 2024: Day 1 – WB Showcases Joker: Folie à Deux , Furiosa , and More

TV Premiere Dates 2024

• Trending on RT
• Play Movie Trivia

The Menu Reviews

Despite knowing how the story goes and where the twists and turns are, The Menu is a film that I can see myself going back to again and again.

Full Review | Original Score: A- | Mar 1, 2024

The movie captivated the audience in a way that held us hostage to Chef Slowik's emotional manipulation. This was cunningly executed.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 29, 2023

The Menu perfectly and sharply captures the milieu of this fine dining world with a scathing takedown of the condescension and pretension that fuels it.

Full Review | Nov 2, 2023

Black satire skewers the world of haute cuisine.

Full Review | Oct 4, 2023

With splashes of horror and comedy, The Menu explores the world of fine dining restaurants. The movie has a stellar cast, including Fiennes and Taylor-Joy, who are incredible and magnetic together.

Full Review | Sep 8, 2023

The Menu delivers an engaging time and will leave the audience with a tantalizing sardonic meal.

Full Review | Sep 6, 2023

...when the writers found themselves in a difficult plot situation, they resorted to the cheat of some sort of magical powers the Chef can weld with a whisper. Each time such a moment happens, the film begins to lose its grip on the reality of horror.

Full Review | Original Score: C+ | Aug 9, 2023

The Menu is a perfectly cooked, deliciously evil delight of a film that definitely won't be to everyone's tastes, but if it's your sort of dish at all, you're all but guaranteed to love every minute of it.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Aug 4, 2023

This gastronomic experience leaves no space for its comedic quips or food for thought, leaving way too much to be desired.

Full Review | Original Score: D | Jul 29, 2023

In a unique pairing with the palpable tension comes the dark humor of the film— two facets that usually do not go hand in hand in film as laughter famously diffuses any built up tension, but The Menu cooks up a balance that really works.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 26, 2023

“The Menu” is best explained by Hong Chau’s Elsa when she whispers to one of the guests during dinner: “You’ll eat less than you desire and more than you deserve.”

Full Review | Jul 25, 2023

A delicious satire that bites right into any industry that people obsess over. A haunting watch but one that will have you laughing & completely in love with the script.

The Menu deserves to be seen with very little knowledge of the plot. Even the trailers (and likely this review) give too much away. It’s a dark, vicious satire that expertly unfolds itself over the course of ten dishes.

Full Review | Jul 24, 2023

A very clean and well-performed movie that lets you get entirely immersed in it with zero distractions from its narrative and its purpose.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Jul 14, 2023

stylish and engrossing and sadistically enjoyable

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 27, 2023

The art of the meal and the consumer’s craving for more more s’more are just two of the topics explored in a far tastier “eat the rich” offering than the overcooked Triangle of Sadness.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Mar 13, 2023

Never the thought and vision of a cheeseburger made such an impression on me. And by this time your appetite should be big for both the food and the movie.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 3, 2023

The story, penned by Will Tracy and Seth Reiss, is expertly paced, punctuated by gorgeous title cards announcing the dishes.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Feb 20, 2023

Bad pretentious art that thinks it's critiquing bad pretentious art, told exclusively through the medium of food metaphors? ...yay.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/10 | Feb 15, 2023

It’s a slow-building revelation that will result in a gasp, and then it just builds on the “out there” abilities of a thriller/horror hybrid. Come for Ralph Fiennes, but stay for the outrageously bizarre finale.

Full Review | Original Score: A- | Feb 8, 2023

The Definitive Voice of Entertainment News

Subscribe for full access to The Hollywood Reporter

site categories

‘the menu’ review: anya taylor-joy, ralph fiennes and nicholas hoult headline mark mylod’s tasty satire.

A group of epicureans travel to a remote island for the ultimate dining experience in the 'Succession' director's feature premiering at the Toronto Film Festival.

By Lovia Gyarkye

Lovia Gyarkye

Arts & Culture Critic

• Share this article on Facebook
• Share this article on Twitter
• Share this article on Flipboard
• Share this article on Email
• Show additional share options
• Share this article on Linkedin
• Share this article on Pinit
• Share this article on Reddit
• Share this article on Tumblr
• Share this article on Whatsapp
• Share this article on Print
• Share this article on Comment

Related Stories

George miller on 'furiosa' star anya taylor-joy: "there's something mystical about her", george miller to be honored at cinemacon with international career achievement award.

Mylod is best known for his television direction —  Shameless, Game of Thrones and most recently Succession (for which he’s nabbed an Emmy nomination) — but he’s not new to film. His earlier projects The Big White (in 2005) and What’s Your Number (in 2011) are mostly forgotten, but with The Menu , a movie that flaunts a sharp vision, the director makes an exciting, confident return to film.

Written by Willy Tracy ( Sucession ) and Seth Reiss ( Late Night with Seth Myers ), The Menu follows Tyler ( Nicholas Hoult ), an insufferable epicurean, and his date Margot ( Anya Taylor-Joy ), a woman shrouded in mystery, for dinner at Hawthorn. They are among the restaurant’s 12 guests, who also include a never named actor trying to resuscitate his career (John Leguizamo) and his unhappy assistant, Felicity (Aimee Carrero); Lillian Bloom, a delusional restaurant critic ( Janet McTeer ), and her spineless editor, Ted (Paul Adelstein); Anne ( Judith Light ) and Richard (Reed Birney), a wealthy couple; and Bryce (Rob Yang), Soren (Arturo Castro) and Dave (Mark St. Cyr), a trio of obnoxious tech bros whose boss is Hawthorn’s main investor; and a mystery person I won’t spoil here.

An efficient but unhurried introduction sketches each character enough for us to understand the outlines of their personalities. Everyone, except for Margot, shares a reality of wealth, access and privilege. When we meet the pair, Tyler is admonishing Margot for smoking cigarettes, insisting that she will char her tastebuds. Margot doesn’t care: She can’t relate to Tyler’s reverence of expensive culinary experiences, and finds his devotion humorous.

The Menu is structured around Hawthorn’s tasting menu, and the film’s arresting visual language is reflected in the meals, which are each presented with brief, witty title cards. Elsa leads the diners to the main dining room — a steely open-concept kitchen that flirts with a brutalist aesthetic — after the tour. In Ethan Tobman’s clean-cut production design, grays and cold blues dominate the color palette. The orange from the fireplace lining the walls and the kitchen’s open flames merely add an illusion of warmth.

The guests are seated. The servers push their chairs in and lay napkins on their laps. A chipper sommelier floats through the room offering aged reds and chilled whites. When Chef materializes to greet his captive audience, the buzz dies and eyes settle on him. His introduction is a poetic recitation of his food philosophy. There are sinister undertones, but the enamored diners don’t realize they are caught in a malefic game of cat-and-mouse until the second course (raw diver scallop, pickled local seaweeds and algae). By that time, it’s too late.

Tension builds with the courses, each more outlandish than the last. Tracy and Reiss’ slick, inventive screenplay pokes fun at the stresses of culinary life without cheapening the level of creativity and trust it takes to serve high-caliber meals each night. Collin Stetson’s score — imposing, nail-biting, swelling — further immerses us in the Hawthorn kitchen’s spell.

Myod’s film is strongest when it focuses on process, and portrays just how the staff sautés, cures, ferments, measures, flavors, garnishes and obsessively constructs each dish. In those moments, executing a tasting menu begins to resemble the spectacle of theater: There are high stakes, bigger egos and an endless pursuit of an ephemeral feeling.

Full credits

Thr newsletters.

Sign up for THR news straight to your inbox every day

More from The Hollywood Reporter

‘joker 2’ trailer unites joaquin phoenix and lady gaga in song, tim burton says gathering ‘beetlejuice’ team for sequel “was like a weird family reunion”, bong joon ho unveils irreverent first trailer for robert pattinson starrer ‘mickey 17’, kevin costner hopes ‘horizon: an american saga’ can be binged in theaters someday, george miller, anya taylor-joy and chris hemsworth debut high-octane ‘furiosa’ footage at cinemacon.

‘The Menu’ Review: Ralph Fiennes and Anya Taylor-Joy in a Restaurant Thriller That Gives Foodie Culture the Slicing and Dicing It Deserves

It's at once a Michelin Star version of "Saw" and a tasty satire of what high-end dining has become.

By Owen Gleiberman

Owen Gleiberman

Chief Film Critic

• ‘Back to Black’ Review: Marisa Abela Nails Amy Winehouse in Every Look, Mood and Note in a Biopic at Once Forthright and Forbidding 23 hours ago
• ‘The People’s Joker’ Is a Comic-Book Fantasia More Authentic Than Just About Any Comic-Book Movie 3 days ago
• ‘The Antisocial Network: Memes to Mayhem’ Review: A Netflix Doc Smartly Tells an Internet Hate Story: When 4Chan Met QAnon 4 days ago

If you’re someone who considers themself a foodie (and I totally am), chances are there was a moment in the last few years when you had The Awakening. It may have been when the waiter was describing the veal marrow with beet foam served with baby lettuces from New Zealand. It may have been when you were eating the red snapper that was cooked halfway through, like a rare steak, and you thought, “I love sushi, I love cooked fish, but I’m not sure this is really the best of both worlds.” It may have been when you saw the bill.

“The Menu” is a black comedy, but one played close to the bone. And it is a thriller, because after a while what’s being served to the diners segues from pretentious to dangerous. Even the danger becomes a form of snobbery: This is how much the food matters . Yet the tasty joke of “The Menu” is that the food doesn’t matter at all. The food is an abstraction, an idea , all generated to fulfill some beyond-the-beyond notion of perfection that has little to do with sustenance or pleasure and everything to do with the vanity of those who are creating the food and those who are consuming it.

The latter, in this case, are an ensemble of diner victims as brimming with theatrical flaws as the characters in a “Knives Out” movie. That’s why the knives are out for them. They’re getting what they deserve just for coming to this restaurant, for buying into the dream that this is the meal they’ve earned, because that’s how cool and prosperous and elite they are.

Tyler (Nichols Hoult), a devoted foodie geek, already knows he’s going to love everything that’s served. He had brought along a date, Margot ( Anya Taylor-Joy ), who is not nearly as into it — in fact, she turns into the audience’s cynically levelheaded, ordinary-person representative who sees through all the puffery on display. Lillian (Janet McTeer), a food critic, prides herself on writing the kinds of reviews that close restaurants, so we know she’s going to get her just deserts. There’s also a trio of tech bros (Arturo Castro, Rob Yang, and Mark St. Cyr) who, between the three of them, incarnate every flavor of obnoxious. And there’s a well-liked but fading movie star, played by John Leguizamo, along with his assistant (Aimee Carrero), who’s using the dinner as a pretext to part ways with him.

“The Menu” is divided into courses, with each dish, and its ingredients, listed on screen, and for a while the movie is content to satirize the food. The first dish features foam (a tipoff that it’s not going to melt in your mouth so much as evaporate before you can enjoy it). And that’s the down-to-earth dish. Each succeeding one represents more and more of a deconstruction of food as we know it. Chef Slowik is a mad scientist of gastronomy who has reduced the very essence of cooking to a glorified lab experiment. The diners are his guinea pigs, which may be why he harbors a barely disguised contempt for them. As it turns out, the menu he has masterminded is meticulously arranged for all of them to get their just deserts, as if this were the Michelin Star version of “Saw.”  

All the actors are fun, but the two lead actors are so good they’re delicious. Ralph Fiennes plays the art chef from hell as a high fascist of snobbery, as if his mission — to make food that’s to be savored but is somehow too great to eat — were exalting him and tormenting him at the same time. And Anya Taylor-Joy, as the customer who’s got his number, cuts through it all with a sparkle that grows more and more contemptuous, as she puts together the big picture of what’s going on: that the decadent aristocratic superiority of it all is the whole point. The grand finale is bitingly funny, as Chef Slowik deconstructs the ultimate junk food — the smore, a “fucking monstrosity” that will cleanse everything with its fire. “The Menu” says that the trouble with what high-end cuisine has evolved to is that it’s grown too far apart from the low end, leaving nothing in between. No matter how divine the food is, you wind up starving.

Reviewed at Toronto Film Festival, Sept. 12, 2022. MPA Rating: R. Running time: 106 MIN.

• Production: A Searchlight Pictures release of a Hyperobject Industries, Alienworx Productions production. Producers: Adam McKay, Betsy Koch, Will Ferrell. Executive producers: Michael Sledd, Seth Reiss, Will Tracy.
• Crew: Director: Mark Mytod. Screenplay: Seth Reiss, Will Tracy. Camera: Peter Deming. Editor: Christopher Tellefsen. Music: Colin Stetson.
• With: Ralph Fiennes, Anya Taylor-Joy, Nicholas Hoult, Hong Chau, Janet McTeer, Judith Light, John Lequizamo, Reed Birney, Paul Adelstein, Aimee Carrero, Arturo Castro, Mark St. Cyr, Rob Yang.

More From Our Brands

The best shoes for wide feet that don’t compromise on style, a baby formula billionaire just dropped $27 million on this massive beverly hills estate, ncaa men’s final ratings can’t match women amid uconn routs, the best loofahs and body scrubbers, according to dermatologists, the rookie’s eric winter opens up about filming this week’s ‘raw’ #chenford scene: ‘tim has spiraled’, verify it's you, please log in.

Things you buy through our links may earn  Vox Media  a commission.

The Menu Is Deliciously Mean

Auguste Escoffier, the inventor of the brigade system that still informs how so many commercial kitchens are run today, was inspired by bullying and battlefields. As a teenager, he got pushed around while apprenticing with his uncle, and as a 20-something army enlistee during the Franco-Prussian War, he saw potential in repurposing military structures to bring order, cleanliness, and hierarchy to the kitchen. The bullying, you could argue, didn’t go away so much as it became sublimated into the profession Escoffier helped elevate to an art, with an emphasis on obedience and discipline. When the FX series The Bear , which is essentially about a group of restaurant workers trying to figure out a better way of doing things when the only models they have are toxic, came out in June, it prompted as many PTSD shudders from industry employees past and present as it did “Yes, chef!” memes.

The kitchen staff in The Menu , a deliciously mean movie from frequent Succession director Mark Mylod and Onion alums Seth Reiss and Will Tracy, bark “Yes, chef,” too, and when they do, it’s with an unsettling martial precision. Whatever haute cuisine’s pretensions — and The Menu skewers many; it is as much black comedy as it is thriller — the kitchen is not actually a war zone. And yet at Hawthorne, a fictional restaurant that seats only a dozen customers a night at $1,250 a pop, workers are pinned between the belief that what they’re doing is worth sacrificing everything for and the reality that they have surrendered their lives to grueling service work. A sad-eyed and scary Ralph Fiennes plays star chef Julian Slowik, who’s both the staffers’ chief abuser and a fellow captive, as well as the guiding force behind a particularly ambitious evening at his exclusive eatery. Fiennes is adept with a barely there sneer, which he puts to great use here in a role that’s the most fun he’s been since Hail, Caesar!

In terms of the diners, there are a few finance bros (Arturo Castro, Mark St. Cyr, Rob Yang) more invested in the status that comes with a reservation than the experience itself. There are the celebrities: a preening food critic (Janet McTeer), her editor (Paul Adelstein), and a slightly tarnished movie star (John Leguizamo) in the company of his assistant (Aimee Carrero). Then there are the monied regulars (Reed Birney and Judith Light), as well as a simpering foodie named Tyler (Nicholas Hoult) whose date, Margot (Anya Taylor-Joy), is the film’s heroine and lone unexpected attendee — the guest list has been as carefully curated as the meal. Tyler is a superfan prone to saying things like “Chefs, they play with the raw materials of life itself, and death itself,” and he’s increasingly exasperated with Margot’s indifference to the food and accompanying narrative, though you can’t really blame her. Hawthorne, located on a small island a short ferry ride from the mainland, feels inspired by the setting of Lummi Island’s the Willows Inn and the Scandi severity of Noma in Copenhagen. But the dishes, designed by actual chef Dominique Crenn, quickly take a turn toward the absurd with a fussily plated amuse-bouche giving way to a “breadless bread course” that’s basically a series of dips — then on to something darker.

There’s no tastier meal than the rich, though what makes The Menu more satiating than other recent, glitzier skewerings of ultracapitalism is that its satire isn’t so glib that it leaves you feeling comfortably outside of the proceedings. Instead, it summons the suffocating feeling of having no way out of a doomed setup. Julian’s breakdown owes as much to the personal and the petty as it does to the systemic. And he and his collaborators — among them an aridly precise maître d’ (Hong Chau) and sous-chefs played by Adam Aalderks and Christina Brucato — have pathos even as their actions veer toward the extreme, while Mylod makes the most of the limited location by turning Hawthorne’s luxurious trappings and surroundings into just a trap. The rage at the heart of The Menu is directed at the impossible melding of art and commerce, at the way we’re taught that success at the former requires the support of the latter, even if it means making crushing compromises that drain the joy out of, in this case, the expressly straightforward pleasure of food. The film has sympathy for the sentiment that there’s no way out of this bargain, but it also appreciates the outrageousness of its own apocalyptic scenario. After all, you can always quit, walk out the door — presuming, that is, that you’re allowed to.

More Movie Reviews

• Monkey Man Is a Solid Action Thriller, But It Clearly Wants to Be More
• Behold, an Actually Good Omen Movie
• With The Old Oak , Ken Loach Goes Out on a Hopeful Note
• vulture homepage lede
• ralph fiennes
• anya taylor-joy
• nicholas hoult
• movie review

Most Viewed Stories

• Cinematrix No. 32: April 9, 2024
• Shōgun Recap: A Funeral in Edo
• Curb Your Enthusiasm Finale Recap: A Free Man
• The Hollow Puzzle
• Prosecutors Say Alec Baldwin Had ‘Absolutely No Control’ Over Emotions on Rust
• Every HBO Show, Ranked
• Below Deck Recap: Paris Peace Talks

Editor’s Picks

Most Popular

What is your email.

This email will be used to sign into all New York sites. By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy and to receive email correspondence from us.

Sign In To Continue Reading

Create your free account.

Password must be at least 8 characters and contain:

• Lower case letters (a-z)
• Upper case letters (A-Z)
• Numbers (0-9)
• Special Characters (!@#$%^&*)

As part of your account, you’ll receive occasional updates and offers from New York , which you can opt out of anytime.

To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories .

• What Is Cinema?
• Newsletters

The Menu Is Not What You Expect— It’s Better

By Esther Zuckerman

Resist the temptation to think you know exactly what’s coming in The Menu . The "eat the rich" social satire has gotten quite a workout in cinema recently, even just at the Toronto International Film Festival, where this new film directed by Succession 's Mark Mylod premiered. Sure enough, The Menu was programmed opposite the Knives Out sequel Glass Onion , both movies that featured a bunch of wealthy assholes gathered on a remote island.

But Mylod’s riff on fine dining and the people who partake consistently zigs where you think it will zag. There is bloodshed and there is retribution, but it's doled out in a way that never feels expected or pat. At the risk of sounding hokey: it's a new spin on a familiar flavor, like pickle ice cream or a chocolate hamburger. The Menu lands its joke about the Chef Table -ification of cuisine while also finding nuance in its “capitalism is a plague” messaging.

The Searchlight Pictures release written by comedy veterans Will Tracy and Seth Reiss opens as a young couple board a yacht that will take them to the exclusive restaurant The Hawthorne, where a seating costs $1,250 a head. Nicholas Hoult 's Tyler is what you would call a "foodie"—he talks about "mouthfeel" and is desperate to photograph everything on his plate, rattling off facts about kitchen appliances. Meanwhile, his date, Margot, played by Anya Taylor-Joy just doesn't get it. With her black nails and combat boots, she's an ill-fit in this crew of bankers, celebrities, and uptight WASPs, and she ignores Tyler's suggestion that she refrain from smoking so as not to ruin her palate. Taylor-Joy radiates a chill, coolest girl in the world vibe, while Hoult is all a-titter. Tyler never gets a significant backstory but Hoult, proving himself again as an unusually talented actor, gives you everything you need to know about this eager-to-please rich guy who uses food as a way to make himself sound interesting.

For a while even after the guests take their seats, The Menu seems like it may just be a take on the ultimate silliness of conceptual food. The officious maître d' ( Hong Chau ) takes the group on a tour of the property, showing off the gardens and the smokehouse, "in the Nordic style." Mylod and cinematographer Peter Deming photograph the dishes as if they were making a Netflix documentary, highlighting the way the line cooks delicately tweeze tiny bits of substance onto a gorgeous but empty looking plate.

But there's a brimming tension that forces the audience to keep guessing just what kind of hell is going to break loose. Each table has its own grievances. Tyler's sycophantic food nerdiness clashes with Margot's "who cares" attitude. There's a frigidness between an older couple played by Judith Light and Reed Birney . A food critic ( Janet McTeer ) picks apart everything that comes across her plate. A movie star ( John Leguizamo ) is bickering with his quitting assistant ( Aimee Carrero ), and a group of bankers is in a never-ending dick measuring contest. The question remains whether this is going to become a vomit-fest like the recent Palme d'Or winner Triangle of Sadness or something supernaturally devilish like the horror movie Ready or Not . Maybe these cooks are just cannibals. The answer is: Not really any of that.

Because at the center of this all is Ralph Fiennes ’s inscrutable Chef Slowik. Fiennes is a master at portraying imperiousness, and Slowik certainly projects that, inspiring fervent loyalty amongst his staff, and thunderously clapping his hands before announcing each course. But Fiennes also strains against this stereotype. As Slowik opines about food as memory and ancient bread customs, you may start to wonder as to whether this guy really believes his own bullshit, a question that keeps nagging until the final shot.

It would be easy for The Menu to fall into blanket dichotomies, but the setting doesn't allow for those. Instead, it interrogates the motives of those who choose to spend their money Iat the The Hawthorne and those who choose to make the kind of food it provides. When Margot, the consummate outsider, is asked to pick a side in the class warfare that is about to break out, the decision is not, exactly, a simple one. Taylor-Joy's natural regalness allows her to slip between tiers, even if at times Margot is more of a dramatic device than actual character.

But the reason you go to a place like The Hawthorne is not just for the substance of the dinner, but also the pageantry, and Mylod provides that. The aesthetic of the uber-rich he helped establish on Succession comes in handy here. There's a beautiful sleekness to the visuals that the wily complications of the script undermine to great effect. It’s comfort food silliness with spiky commentary that leaves you satisfied—all in all, a good meal.

More Great Stories From Vanity Fair

Anne Hathaway on Tuning Out the Haters and Embracing Her True Self

Author Patricia Highsmith Was Almost as Twisted as Mr. Ripley

Inside Trump’s Terrifyingly Competent 2024 Campaign

And the MAGA Mutiny That Brought McCarthy’s House Down

Princess Diana Had a Secret Second Wedding Dress

The Best TV Shows of 2024, So Far

From the Archive: Jeffrey Dahmer’s Inferno (1991)

Stay in the know and subscribe to Vanity Fair for just $2.50 $1 per month.

By Hadley Hall Meares

By Eve Batey

By Savannah Walsh

Esther Zuckerman

By Molly Jong-Fast

By Bess Levin

By Gabriel Sherman

By Isaac Arnsdorf

By Julie Miller

By Hillary Busis

By Matthew Jacobs

• The Inventory

The Menu Is a Pitch Perfect Take Down of Pretension and Privilege

The star-studded, food-centric thriller from the team behind succession played at fantastic fest 2022..

If you’re reading a site like this one, odds are at one point in your life, you’ve gotten overly snobby and nerdy about something . Said something or acted so offensively pretentious about a film, album or other piece of art that you even offended yourself. If that’s something you can relate to, you’re really, really going to enjoy The Menu . You’ll probably enjoy it either way, frankly, but if you’ve ever dropped the deepest cut, annoying reference to make yourself sound smart, it’ll just add a whole other level of appreciation. The Menu is the ultimately middle finger to snobbery and modern social dynamics, told in a delightfully intense, hilarious way.

Nicholas Hoult and Anya Taylor-Joy (both soon to be of the Mad Max universe ) star as Tyler and Margot, two of a select group of 12 people who have paid an exorbitant amount of money for a reservation at Hawthorne. Hawthorne is an award-winning restaurant located on its own private island whose head chef named Slowik (Ralph Fiennes) is largely considered the best in the world. From the very first second, Tyler’s obnoxious food vocabulary marks him, and really the film itself, as one that’s going to take its subject way, way too seriously. But that level of snobbery fits right in at Hawthorne, which has an almost disgusting amount of rules, customs, and a menu uniquely tailored to its specific clientele. It’s very detail oriented. Details that, in this case, begin to build to something grander and quite possibly sinister.

As director Mark Mylod ( Succession ) slowly begins to unravel the mystery of Slowik’s dinner, he does so in the style of the best, most high budget episode of Chef’s Table ever. We’re talking full on food porn, with the detailed descriptions, flavor profiles, elaborate reactions, and even on screen titles listing the dish names and ingredients. As a result, that level of comfort many people get from watching food television provides a stark juxtaposition to the increasingly intense, fucked up mystery.

And while we won’t reveal what specifically is afoot here (except to say it isn’t sci-fi, but is so messed up we made the executive decision to cover it on the site anyway), it’s deliciously (pun intended) satisfying. Slowik has a plan that ties in every person, dish, and detail all leading to a grand mission statement that doesn’t just put his patrons in danger, it turns the mirror on its audience itself.

T he Menu is so critical of its characters, there was probably a danger it could itself turn overly pretentious and snobby like the world it’s poking fun at. Thankfully, the film is so slick and well acted, it never reaches that level. Hoult is an annoying ass, and you love him for it. Taylor-Joy is intense and commanding, and Ralph Fiennes is, well, he’s Ralph Fiennes. Add them to a supporting cast that includes John Leguizamo, Hong Chau, Rob Yang, Janet McTeer, and Judith Light, and you’ve got the perfect icing on this cake of this subversive dark comedy.

The Menu opens in theaters November 18.

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel and Star Wars releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV , and everything you need to know about House of the Dragon and Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power .

The Menu Review

18 Nov 2022

Mark Mylod ’s  The Menu  begins as a dressing-down of opulence before transforming into a trashy genre thriller, veering between delightfully silly, and just plain silly. It’s a thriller that’s never quite thrilling enough, though it’s occasionally surprising, starting with the way its lead characters clash over the setting.

Tyler ( Nicholas Hoult ) is a die-hard fanboy of uber-chef Julian Slowik ( Ralph Fiennes ), so the enormous price tag is no object when he has the chance to visit Hawthorne, the chef’s secretive, invite-only restaurant on a lush, secluded island. His excitement is effervescent, if a tad performative. Margot ( Anya Taylor-Joy ), on the other hand, isn’t afraid to make it known how unimpressed she is by all the pomp and circumstance, from Hawthorne’s fancy modernist décor, to the eerily mechanical maître d', Elsa ( Hong Chau ), who is as much a spokesperson as she is an acolyte. Hawthorne is the kind of establishment that demands tireless dedication from its staff, and Mylod satirizes this cult-like kitchen dynamic through amusing exaggerations.

The other diners include an older gentleman who Margot seems to know ( Reed Birney ), a washed-up actor trying to make an impression ( John Leguizamo ), and a rigorous food critic ( Janet McTeer ), all of whom have a full view of the clockwork kitchen from the open dining space. Each time Slowik claps his hands, he commands everyone’s attention. Guests and workers alike hang on Fiennes’ every word, as he passionately describes the emotional impetus behind each deconstructed dish and its theatrical presentation. Before long, the courses begin to take macabre turns that become increasingly personal for the attendees. Unfortunately, while Fiennes may prove joyfully magnetic, this story structure renders all other characters mere passive observers to the plot.

The unfurling plot feels more like a random assemblage of ingredients than a series of carefully considered escalations.

The film’s metamorphosis from measured mystery to horror-comedy comes courtesy of violent accelerations, which arrive suddenly, and often hilariously. The presentation is pristine, akin to a straightforward prestige drama, which yields an amusing disconnect with the mounting absurdities — like Slowik waxing poetic about his violent food-themed horrors and their extravagant staging, practically twirling an invisible moustache. However,  The Menu  struggles to make his philosophical musings amount to much. The unfurling plot, therefore, feels more like a random assemblage of ingredients than a series of carefully considered escalations. The result is tension that dissipates right when it ought to reach its apex.

Fiennes may approach his role with the finesse of Hannibal Lecter, but  The Menu  is seldom more than  Saw dinner theatre — a spectacle that’s fun in a gaudy sort of way, but without taking too many risks. Ironically, that’s a cardinal sin when one works in fine dining. It’s only marginally more forgivable here.

The Ending of The Menu , Explained

When the food is so good, it's to die for.

In The Menu , r enowned chef Julian Slowik (Ralph Fiennes) meticulously crafts a dining experience tailored to 11 of the restaurant's patrons—but the unexpected appearance of Margot (Anya Taylor-Joy), a sex worker hired to accompany fellow guest Tyler (Nicholas Hoult) to dinner, ruins his plans.

Ahead, we explain the movie's shocking ending. (Proceed at your own risk—spoilers are ahead!)

What happens at the end of The Menu ? Does Margot survive?

Erin, an escort who goes by the name Margot while working), accompanies Tyler, a cult follower of chef Julian Slowik, to an exclusive dinner prepared at Julian's high-end restaurant, Hawthorne. The restaurant, located on a remote island where Julian and his army of kitchen staff live and work, promises a night of culinary storytelling to its wealthy patrons—but, little do they realize that they're on the menu.

Julian plays the part of the mad genius, driven to despair despite his acclaim due to his clientele's nonchalant disregard for his craft. His solution? To liberate himself and his patrons with one last meal, in which he slowly reveals to them the sins of their ways (cheating scandals, money laundering, et cetera). As the night goes on and as people are shot, stabbed, and sliced at, the diners gradually realize that they and all of Hawthorne's workers—including Julian—will die.

Unfortunately for Julian, Erin's arrival throws a wrench in his dinner plans. Tyler, who still willingly came to the island after Julian secretly confided his murderous plans to him ahead of time, hired Erin after his original plus one broke up with him. Initially, Julian attempts to rectify the unforeseen damage by asking Erin to choose a side: stand with the workers or stand with the patrons. She chooses the workers, and Julian sends her on a mission outside of the restaurant to retrieve a canister. Instead, she ventures into Julian's house, where she happens across his treasured career memorabilia, like a photo of him happily flipping burgers when he was a young chef, and a radio. On the radio, she desperately sends out an SOS call, but the Coast Guard officer who arrives turns out to be in on Julian's master plan.

The night forges on, with the last, fatal course imminent. Making a last-ditch effort to escape, Erin confronts Julian head-on, telling him that dessert can't be served yet because she's still starving. She says it like a challenge, which Julian eagerly takes up. When Julian asks her what she'd like to eat, she tells him she wants a simple cheeseburger. What follows is a delicious montage of Julian whipping up the fast food staple, wearing the same rare smile in the photo Erin discovered.

When Julian finishes cooking, Erin graciously accepts the burger, taking a generous bite of the dish. Afterwards, she apprehensively tells him that she overestimated her appetite and asks if she can take the burger to-go. Stunningly, he relents, even giving her a doggy bag for her troubles.

She escapes into the night, heading out into the water via the abandoned Coast Guard boat just in time to see the restaurant erupt into flames behind her. Julian had covered the restaurant and his guests in giant marshmallows, chocolate syrup, and graham cracker crumbles—his lethal interpretation of s'mores—before igniting Hawthorne.

As the ship's engine stalls in the dark of night, Erin, exhausted, sits on the bow and looks out at the fire. She opens up the takeout box and finishes the rest of her meal.

Why did Julian spare Erin's life?

The one thing Julian lacks in his illustrious career as a chef is joy. Erin picks up on this and, in mocking his intellectualism and avant-garde menu, she forces him to rekindle his love of cooking by making her a cheeseburger.

"Ralph’s character and Anya’s character are about connection," director Mark Mylod told Den of Geek . "Ultimately, she has manipulated him. He also realized that she’s manipulating him but he allows her to win. All the unspoken business is in the final discourse between them and the burger. It’s a mutual understanding… and he allows her to go 'checkmate.'"

By restoring his integrity as a cook in his final moments, letting Erin escape death is almost Julian's way of expressing his gratitude.

Why don't the diners fight back?

By the time Julian's sous chef shoots himself in the forehead, it should be apparent to every one of the diners that the night has taken a turn for the worst. And yet, the night progresses with little pushback from the terrified patrons.

As Mylod explains, "The absolute futility of escape coupled with the journey they’ve been on, that whisper in the air of Slowik’s words over that evening, over the dinner, the combination of those two elements is just taking them to a place of absolute naked submission." And it doesn't help that there were plenty of cooks keeping guard at all of the restaurant's exits.

As an associate editor at HarpersBAZAAR.com, Chelsey keeps a finger on the pulse on all things celeb news. She also writes on social movements, connecting with activists leading the fight on workers' rights, climate justice, and more. Offline, she’s probably spending too much time on TikTok, rewatching Emma (the 2020 version, of course), or buying yet another corset. 

Film, TV & Theatre

The 48 Best Shows on Hulu

Why Pop Culture Keeps Falling for the "Gay Liar"

How “Mary & George” Makes Jacobean Fashion Sexy

Logan Lerman Doesn’t Really Think About Fame

What We Know About A Complete Unkown

Chloë Sevigny on Being a Generational Muse

Everything to Know About Beetlejuice 2

The 20 Best Easter Movies for the Whole Family

Julio Torres & Tilda Swinton: The Duo We Deserve

75 Essential Feminist Movies You Need to See

Ricky Martin Proves His Range in “Palm Royale”

Follow Eater online:

• Follow Eater on Twitter
• Follow Eater on Facebook
• Follow Eater on Youtube
• Follow Eater on Instagram

Site search

• Los Angeles
• New Orleans
• Philadelphia
• Portland, OR
• San Francisco
• Twin Cities
• Washington DC

Filed under:

Review: If ‘The Menu’ Makes You Uncomfortable, That’s Because It’s Supposed To

The Ralph Fiennes movie, part horror film and part dark comedy, takes the cult of fine dining to the extreme

Share this story

• Share this on Facebook
• Share this on Twitter
• Share All sharing options

Share All sharing options for: Review: If ‘The Menu’ Makes You Uncomfortable, That’s Because It’s Supposed To

What would you give to have the best dinner in the world? That’s the question The Menu , a new film from director Mark Mylod, seeks to unravel. Would you make the pilgrimage to a tiny isolated island, throw your lot in with just a dozen other diners for the evening, and shell out more than $1,000 per person for the experience? Would you endure the terrifying coolness of the head chef as he describes how you’ll consume “entire ecosystems” during the course of that coveted meal, itself a sea of foams and gels and emulsions? And as The Menu reveals itself to be a sharp, biting critique of the restaurant industry masquerading as a stringent, slow-burning horror film, the question — initially rooted in a certain kind of foodie bucket-list strategy — becomes much more sinister: Are you so willing to consume the world’s finest foods that you’d put your life on the line?

The film, which stars Anya Taylor-Joy, Nicholas Hoult, and Ralph Fiennes, who plays the harrowingly intense chef Julian, takes clear inspiration from the familiar narratives surrounding “prestige food”: Transition scenes, styled to look like menu cards that introduce each course, are a clear nod to Chef’s Table. The dishes look just like the intricately composed plates you’d see at Noma; that likely has something to do with the involvement of chef Dominique Crenn, who lent her expertise as the film’s culinary consultant. The first course, an assemblage of sea plants, rocks, and “barely frozen filtered sea water,” is apparently such a moving analog that overly enthusiastic foodie Tyler (Hoult) weeps at its beauty as his date, Margot (Taylor-Joy), looks on in disgust.

At its core, The Menu is an extremely dark comedy that examines how class functions in the dining room, among both the people serving and those being served. The restaurant’s privileged patrons, hand-selected by Julian for their proximity to wealth and power, are obvious vehicles for that critique — there’s an actor (played by John Leguizamo), a politician and his wife, and a group of obnoxious tech bros celebrating a birthday. They’re all hiding secrets and indiscretions that chef Julian is somehow aware of, and has chillingly laser-etched onto tortillas for eating alongside a dish of chicken al pastor. In this moment, the patrons — and the viewers — realize that something seriously sinister is afoot.

The Menu indulges in how the hospitality industry caters to the rich — and the kind of entitlement that has bred among those diners. The central plot involves Julian, a familiar type of tyrant in the kitchen, who extends his ruthless reign into the dining room, pushing his guests to increasingly extreme levels of discomfort. He denies them food. He shames them for their wealth. He watches as his VIP guests — who are unfamiliar with any kind of maltreatment in their lives, much less this extreme, performative cruelty — struggle to fathom what is happening to them. Once it becomes clear that no amount of exclaiming “Do you know who I am?” is going to save them from Julian’s planned horrors, the guests shift focus to trying to figure out how to make it through the night alive. As viewers, we’re squirming in our own seats, vacillating between rooting for Julian as he puts a bunch of bratty VIPs in their place and the creeping feeling that he’s gone too far: Fiennes plays chef Julian coolly, with a terrifying undercurrent of simmering rage.

In one course simply called “the Mess,” the mental and physical toll of working under a chef like Julian is explored in especially brutal fashion. The film also gestures to the prevalence of sexual harassment within the industry, including a scene where a woman who refused Julian’s advances is allowed to exact brutal vengeance on his body. It’s the kind of revenge scenario that workers who have been abused by their bosses and coworkers might fantasize about to some extent. But it’s a discomfiting and tense moment, one that questions whether there is actually a way to meaningfully make up for that kind of violence, and one that takes place in full view of the dining room, where guests are expected to continue eating their dinner. The scene feels like an especially pointed critique of the way that the restaurant industry uses stunning spaces and beautiful dishes as a way to hide its abuses.

We know that working in a kitchen can be physically, and mentally, dangerous, but rarely are we confronted with the visceral consequences of that danger. More than that, we often ignore the ways in which restaurant owners and chefs collude to hide those dangers in an effort to keep their diners happy, protect their buddies, and of course, make money. The Menu confronts that reality in a way that feels both obvious and fresh: as the only reasonable conclusion in an industry where workers are deeply undervalued.

Fiennes plays Julian as a product of his ego, crushed by his own expectations and insistence on seeking validation via good reviews and the cash of monied diners. There are points in the film where you almost feel sorry for him, knowing that he’s actually much more pitiful than petrifying, but then he goes back to torturing his patrons in increasingly despicable ways and the feeling of sympathy dissipates. And as for those patrons, don’t be surprised to see parts of yourself in these characters. Anyone who’s ever spent too much money on a fancy dinner has probably said something as annoying and pretentious as any of Tyler’s best lines, and any “foodie” has been guilty of caring more about the way their food tastes than how the people who grow and butcher and prepare it are treated.

By the time the night ends, the fates of the guests are sealed; the ending is funnier than it is frightening, and an excellent cap on nearly two hours of anxiety and panic. The Menu is as much a comedy as it is a horror film, one that anyone who’s ever worked in the restaurant industry will likely appreciate. Who among us hasn’t wanted to take matters into our own hands with an especially annoying customer? And who among us “foodies” hasn’t been one of them?

The Menu opens in theaters on November 18.

More From Eater

Sign up for the sign up for eater's newsletter.

The freshest news from the food world every day

Thanks for signing up!

Check your inbox for a welcome email.

Oops. Something went wrong. Please enter a valid email and try again.

Salsa Espinaler Is a Hot Sauce Without Borders

How to (Responsibly) Get Rid of Your Kitchen Appliances

In New ‘Simpsons’ Episode, Marge Becomes the Face of a Ghost Kitchen Union

Should Momofuku Own the Term ‘Chili Crunch’?

This Is What Space Tastes Like

Why Are Restaurant Water Glasses So Small?

Menu, The (United States, 2022)

Perhaps the thing that makes The Menu so delicious is the taste that accompanies watching the ultra-rich get trussed up and stuffed like Thanksgiving turkeys. A dark satire that skewers privilege and eviscerates the famous, the wealthy, and professional critics (gulp), this film from prolific TV director Mark Mylod takes no prisoners. Although the focus is on (not surprisingly) the menu offered up by famed Chef Slowik (Ralph Fiennes at his most unhinged), this is no Babette’s Feast . There’s something about torture, bloodletting, and the potential for mass murder that dampens the appetite. Plus, the dishes served to the small group of a dozen diners don’t look all that appealing to begin with.

This isn’t the only movie of its sort exposing the venality and self-absorption of the 1%. It makes a perfect companion piece to Ruben Ostlund’s Triangle of Sadness . Both films have similar goals and use twisted, Monty Python- inspired comedy to get the point across. The Menu comes with more star power than Triangle of Sadness . Although the latter boasts a sloshed Woody Harrelson, this one gives us established actors Ralph Fiennes, John Leguizamo, and Jane McTeer to go along with Nicholas Hoult and white-hot Anya Taylor-Joy. Sporting red hair and an intensity to match, Taylor-Joy goes toe-to-toe with Fiennes and never seems out of her depth. Their scenes together are some of the best moments The Menu has to offer.

The movie plays a little like an offbeat horror film without the horror vibe. One almost roots for the disillusioned and seemingly homicidal chef because most of his diners (with the exception of Taylor-Joy’s Margot) are so repugnant that watching them suffer seems like a good way to spend an hour and a half. Slowik is sympathetic because he embodies the average viewer’s disdain for the entitlement that suffuses the room.

The twelve attendees include two returning frequent diners, Richard (Reed Birney) and Anne (Judith Light); influential food critic Lillian (Janet McTeer) and her obsequious editor, Ted (Paul Edelstein); egocentric techies Soren (Arturo Castro), Bryce (Rob Yang), and Dave (Mar St. Cyr); a famous actor (John Leguizamo) and his assistant, Felicity (Aimee Carrero); foodie Tyler (Nicholas Hoult) and his date for the evening, Margot (Anya Taylor-Joy); and Slowik’s mother (Rebecca Koon). Some, like Richard, Anne, and Tyler, crave the experience. Others, like Soren, Bryce, and Dave, are unimpressed by the pretentiousness of the cuisine. Still others, like Lillian and the actor, use this as an opportunity to show off. Only Margot seems out-of-place and, because her name wasn’t on the original list (Tyler switched dates at the last minute), she represents a fly in Slowik’s ointment. His meticulous plans for the evening didn’t include Margot.

Despite its focus on class issues, there’s no penetrating social commentary to be found in The Menu , which takes it for granted that the ultra-rich are ultra-absorbed and, as a result, deserve to be humiliated and brutalized. That’s where the fun lies and the filmmakers don’t clutter it up with political messaging. Everyone here is a stereotype, even the generally likeable Margot, who represents our portal through the looking glass. There’s a kind of wish fulfillment at work here to go along with a lot of tongue-in-cheek nastiness.

Comments Add Comment

• Princess Bride, The (1987)
• City Lights (1931)
• This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
• Feast (2006)
• Dumb and Dumberer (2003)
• Freddy Got Fingered (2001)
• Schindler's List (1993)
• English Patient, The (1996)
• Quiz Show (1994)
• Duchess, The (2008)
• Wrath of the Titans (2012)
• Bigger Splash, A (2016)
• (There are no more better movies of Hong Chau)
• Whale, The (2022)
• Downsizing (2017)
• (There are no more worst movies of Hong Chau)
• (There are no more better movies of Rob Yang)
• (There are no more worst movies of Rob Yang)

‘Civil War': Powerful depiction of combat on U.S. soil shocks the senses

Searing saga stars kirsten dunst as one of the journalists witnessing explosions and executions in new york city, pennsylvania and elsewhere..

Rookie photographer Jessie (Cailee Spaeny) witnesses the brutality of Americans battling one another in the dystopian film “Civil War.”

In writer-director Alex Garland’s purely fictional, yet searing and brutal and highly charged dystopian “Civil War,” the united states of America are no longer united, and the rebel forces have accumulated military-grade tanks, helicopters, Humvees and weapons. The nation is in danger of being in engulfed in the flames of a self-inflicted fire, and it is a shock to the senses to witness this madness.

So yes, this is a film sure to inspire much debate, and no doubt some will call it alarming in its prescience. I wouldn’t go that far; we are a nation deeply divided, but an actual, real civil war hardly seems imminent. Still, with horrific wars raging in other parts of the world, and with politically charged violence part of the fabric of this country, “Civil War” will hit home no matter where you live.

The script by Garland (“Ex Machina,” “Annihilation”) makes it clear we are in a parallel universe. This is not an anti-MAGA screed, nor is it an indictment of wokeness, whatever that means. In “Civil War,” California and Texas have seceded from the Union to form the Western Forces and are hell-bent on overthrowing an isolated and megalomaniacal third-term POTUS (Nick Offerman) who has disbanded the FBI and has authorized air and ground strikes to combat the rebels. (There are other insurrectionist factions, including one called the Florida Alliance. Chaos rules the day.)

The story of “Civil War” is told not via the politicians and the soldiers, but through the experiences of a group of journalists who have embarked on a perilous, perhaps suicidal mission to make their way to Washington, D.C., in what could be the final days of the war. Whereas the most memorable films about wartime correspondents (“The Year of Living Dangerously,” “Salvador,” “Under Fire,” “The Killing Fields”) have been set in foreign lands, what makes “Civil War” so jarring is that the scenes of bombs going off in the night, of looters who have been tortured, of rebels summarily executing uniformed personnel, of refugees rioting, of piles of bodies in ditches, are taking place in New York City, in Pennsylvania, in West Virginia, in Virginia, or in the nation’s capital.

• Civil war over Trump? Not likely

Kirsten Dunst delivers some of the most powerful work of her career as the battle-tested and world-renowned Reuters photojournalist Lee Smith, who wears the same stone-faced expression whether she’s pointing her lens at a man who is dying just a few feet away from her or “relaxing” in the obligatory Wartime Journalists Bar Scene we’ve come to expect in this genre. Lee and her working partner, the free-spirited and equally fearless Joel (Wagner Moura), embark on the extremely dangerous, 857-mile road trip in the hopes of somehow scoring an interview with the president. Also along for the ride: Lee’s mentor Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson), a veteran journalist for the New York Times near the end of his career, and the fresh-faced and ambitious and highly naïve photographer Jessie (Cailee Spaeny), who talks her way into joining them and serves as an obvious reflection of the younger Lee.

Getting to the White House takes a veteran photojournalist (Kirsten Dunst) through war zones.

“Civil War” delivers one piercingly effective sequence after another, with much of the action taking place in the blue-skied sunshine of beautiful days, making the violence all that more jarring. With the hand-held camerawork and the brilliant use of sound adding to the feeling of authenticity, Lee and her colleagues routinely risk their lives to get the picture, to tell the story, to the world. Jesse Plemons has a memorably chilling cameo as a soldier wearing Elton John-type glasses who will gun you down on the spot if you give the wrong answer to the question, “What kind of American are you?” In another tension-filled scene, the group finds itself pinned down alongside two men who are engaged in a shootout with a sniper. When Joel tries to get some context, one of the gunmen tells him it comes down to this: He’s trying to kill us and we’re trying to kill him.

Rebels aim to overthrow a megalomanical U.S. president (Nick Offerman).

So it goes in a story that plays as much like a horror film as a war movie. We don’t really know who’s on the “right side” in this horrific conflict; at times, we’re not even sure if the journalists are covering the good guys or the bad guys. Lee keeps telling Jessie it's not their job to take sides or get emotionally involved; it's their job to record history. This is a film that knows wartime journalism.

Time and again, Garland gives us images of Americana in ruins. A football stadium is now a refugee camp. A Christmas-themed attraction has become a war zone. On a seemingly peaceful and unperturbed small-town Main Street, snipers can be glimpsed on the rooftops. The extended final sequence, with the Western Forces closing in on the White House, is brilliant and pulse-pounding, and will take your breath away. This is one of the strongest movies of the year so far.

• facebook-rs

‘Sugar’ Gives You a Sweetly Hardboiled Colin Farrell and One Sour WTF Twist

By Alan Sepinwall

Alan Sepinwall

The most succinct piece of TV criticism I’ve read in the last decade was this 58-word tweet from Topher Florence:

The new Apple TV+ drama Sugar is an extreme case even by Surf Dracula standards, where it’s more like there was a show just called Surf Guy , and it took until late in the season to find out that our would-be surfer was, in fact, lord of the vampires. 

Editor’s picks

The 250 greatest guitarists of all time, the 500 greatest albums of all time, the 50 worst decisions in movie history, every awful thing trump has promised to do in a second term.

Based on everything we can see, Sugar is a pure-hearted hero. He consistently offers bad guys a peaceful way out of their messes, confident that he’ll always win if things turn violent — and afraid of the side of himself that’s so good at hurting others. He volunteers to pay for an unhoused man’s fare to go home to stay with the sister the man is too ashamed to call without prompting, and later takes in that man’s dog. When he inadvertently gets ex-rock star Melanie too blitzed to properly answer his questions, he makes sure to get her home safely, and to ignore her drunken advances. Ruby (Kirby), who manages his business affairs, is perpetually worried that Sugar is investing too emotionally into every case. 

If Sugar seems to be good to be true, then… well, no. He really is that good. But he is also not just a saintly private detective, and it’s the other part that makes Sugar a lot messier to both discuss and watch. 

'Steve! (Martin)' Revisits the Heyday of a Wild and Crazy Comedian

Colin farrell dreams of mob boss immortality in new teaser for 'the penguin', bartees strange reimagines 'you always hurt the ones you love' for 'the new look' soundtrack.

This is frustrating on several levels, not least of which is that the private eye pastiche stuff is very entertaining. Several episodes are directed by the great Brazilian filmmaker Fernando Meirelles ( City of God ), and he and Protosevich lean way into their influences. Sugar is a big film buff(*), particularly of the kind of Forties and Fifties noirs that the series is informed by, so his travels through modern-day Los Angeles are frequently interspersed with clips from Double Indemnity , Night of the Hunter , Kiss Me Deadly , Sweet Smell of Success , and more. It’s not a new device, though better known for being used by satires like Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid or the early HBO sitcom Dream On . It would be easy for this to make Sugar seem like a very poor imitator of Mike Hammer and company, or for the clips to feel like they are hitting the audience over the head with the point of various sequences. But they feel deployed just right, in large part because Colin Farrell’s performance is so charismatic and lived-in, it’s not hard to imagine him starring in a version of The Big Heat if he had been born back at the same time as Glenn Ford.

(*) Amusingly, he mentions loving L.A. Confidential at one point, never remarking on the fact that he’s currently working for a man who looks exactly like the villain of that movie.

For that matter, the show that Sugar turns out to be is interesting, too. It just completely undercuts what came before, while also arriving much too late to feel fully-formed when Protosevich decides it’s time to turn his cards face up. It also feels like a cheat, because the series is told from Sugar’s POV, complete with voiceover narration that in no way discusses [REDACTED] until after the audience has found out about it. Everything is presented this way entirely to pull the rug out from under viewers, but without nearly enough value gained from it. If we were watching things unfold through, say, Melanie’s eyes (Ryan is terrific, as are all the supporting players), and then [REDACTED] came out, that would have real weight. Ditto a version of the story where Sugar somehow didn’t know about [REDACTED], and we learned it at the same time he did.

This is just trickeration for its own sake, and it’s counter-productive and annoying. The resolution of the mystery becomes an afterthought, while the reality of what Sugar is doesn’t get enough room to fully get up to speed. The two concepts could work together very well, with this star, this ensemble, and this much care given to the look and feel of the world. But they have to be allowed to co-exist, rather than one being held in reserve for weeks and weeks, all in favor of a one-shot burst of WTF.

Vulnerable Arizona Republicans Flip-Flop on Abortion After Ban Upheld

Lady gaga becomes joaquin phoenix's partner-in-insanity in 'joker: folie à deux' trailer, kari lake claims she opposes arizona abortion ban she once called ‘great’, kelly clarkson takes miley cyrus and stevie nicks' 'edge of midnight' over the top in kellyoke cover.

Just let Dracula surf, guys. Please. People want to see the show you are trying to make, not an endless warm-up for that show.

Lady Gaga Becomes Joaquin Phoenix's Partner-in-Insanity in 'Joker: Folie à Deux' Trailer

• 'Not Alone Anymore'
• By Jon Blistein and Tomás Mier

That Jon Snow 'Game of Thrones' Spin-Off Is 'Firmly On the Shelf,' Says Kit Harington

• By Jon Blistein

Jackie Chan Just Turned 70, But He Swears His White Hair Is for a Movie

• Just a Number

Larry David Tried So Hard to Avoid All Emotion on the Last Day of Filming 'Curb Your Enthusiasm'

• Pretty Good

'The Challenge: All Stars' Showrunner Peels Back the Curtain on New Season

• The Old School
• By Andy Greene

Most Popular

Jodie foster pulled robert downey jr. aside on their 1995 film set and told him: 'i’m scared of what happens to you next' because of addiction, where to stream 'quiet on set: the dark side of kids tv' online, sources claim john travolta is ‘totally smitten’ with this co-star, stevie j shows the world what a "real" diddy party looks like, you might also like, robert pattinson confronts robert pattinson as bong joon ho debuts wacky, bold ‘mickey 17’ trailer at cinemacon, charles & colvard takes strategic shift amid tough business conditions , amazon sale: flexispot’s adjustable exercise bike is over $100 off right now, 2024 emmys predictions: outstanding drama series, ncaa men’s final ratings can’t match women amid uconn routs.

Rolling Stone is a part of Penske Media Corporation. © 2024 Rolling Stone, LLC. All rights reserved.

Verify it's you

Please log in.

‘The Greatest Hits’ review: Time…

Share this:.

• Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
• Share via SMS (Opens in new window)
• Things to Do
• Classifieds

Things To Do Movies

‘the greatest hits’ review: time travel-by-song hook is catchy in fantasy-romance, through her character’s grief and excitement over a new love, lucy boynton grounds movie.

Ned Benson appreciates how music and memory can become intertwined — how music can bring you back to a certain place, time or — perhaps most importantly — person.

The idea for “The Greatest Hits” — a fairly melodic fantasy-romance film written and directed by Benson that had its premiere last month at the South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, saw a limited theatrical release last week and debuts this week on Hulu — dates to 2008, when Benson read neurologist Oliver Sacks’ “Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain.” According to the production notes for the Searchlight Pictures release, the first draft of the screenplay followed the next year, with Benson picking back up with the project during the pandemic.

In Benson’s occasionally magical tale, Harriet (Lucy Boynton) is still grieving the loss of her boyfriend two years after his death. However, Harriet regularly encounters Max (David Corenswet), briefly traveling back in time when she hears a song from their shared existence and being able to interact with him in a now-altered moment from the past.

We learn that Harriet has been attempting to use these time-bending moments to change what is to come.

“Hon,” she says after arriving back in the passenger seat of a car he’s driving, “I have seen what happens next, and I need you to listen to me: Please, please take the next right.”

“That’s right,” he says dismissively but at the same time lovingly, “you can see the future. I forgot who I was dealing with. You should have said something.”

“I have,” she says. “So many times.”

He keeps going straight and another vehicle slams into his side of the car.

This seemingly supernatural predicament — it is, of course, possible she’s suffering from a mental condition — not only is psychologically draining and keeping her from moving on, but it’s also downright physically dangerous. Lucy seizes and passes out whenever and wherever she hears one of these songs, so the one-time future music producer has taken a job at a library and wears big headphones everywhere she goes to block out outside noise in the name of safety.

Nonetheless, she also spends time at home, going through records — via the music-listening setup she’s inherited from Max, including a record player, hi-fi speakers and a coveted but ill-fated used chair — to find the song that may allow to give her the future she desperately desires.

Her life is further complicated when she meets David (Justin H. Min), who takes an immediate interest in Harriet upon meeting her in a grief support group, the former dealing with the loss of his parents. He, too, is a music lover, and soon the two are having a flirtatious argument about who gets to buy a rare Roxy Music vinyl at the endangered record store where her best friend, Morris (Austin Crute), is DJing on this night,

Morris loves Harriet but also is quite tired of her wallowing in the past, but figuratively and literally, and encourages her to try to have something with David.

David, meanwhile, is understandably perplexed when Harriet lets him into her world, gradually revealing what is going on with her.

Benson, who shares a story-by credit on 2021’s “Black Widow” and is the writer-director of 2014’s “The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby,” walks a fine line with “The Greatest Hits,” encouraging the viewer to both want Harriet to be with the kind David while also not necessarily giving up on saving Max, who is never shown to be anything but a decent fellow himself.

And, at least for a while, it’s tough to envision how “The Greatest Hits” will end, even after Harriet concludes exactly how her particular brand of time travel works.

The film is anchored by the performance of Boyton (“Bohemian Rhapsody,” “Chevalier”), who makes us root for Harriet both when she’s sad and when she’s experiencing a mix of excitement and guilt as things develop with David. She has chemistry both with Min (“The Umbrella Academy”) and Corenswet, with whom she shared the screen in the TV series “The Politician.”

(If Corenswet’s name is ringing a bell, it’s likely because he’s been cast in writer-director James Gunn’s highly anticipated “Superman,” recently renamed from “Superman: Legacy” and planned for a 2025 release. We see nothing here to suggest he will prove to be at least a solid choice.)

The lone area where “The Greatest Hits” lets us down is its all-important music. Mileage will vary with this, of course, but, to our ears, so many of the songs chosen by Benson, music supervisor Mary Ramos and DJ Harvey, a music consultant, are relatively bland and uninteresting. Obviously, different folks adore different music, but it’s hard to imagine some of the songs featured would delight audiophiles Harriet and Morris, and you can’t help but wonder if the project’s budget for music were only so robust.

(For the record, we have no issue with the use of 2009 pop hit “I’m Like a Bird” by Nelly Furtado, who appears briefly in “The Greatest Hits.”)

Still, as a love letter to the power of music — as well as to Los Angeles, where the movie was shot entirely on location — “The Greatest Hits” is well worth a spin.

‘The Greatest Hits’

Where: Hulu.

Rated: PG-13 for drug use, strong language and suggestive material.

Runtime: 1 hour, 34 minutes.

Stars (of four): 2.5.

More in Things To Do

Why trekking poles are the most underrated piece of outdoor gear

Recipes: Spring salad season features fresh greens and tender veggies

Things To Do | ‘Franklin’: What Michael Douglas learned about democracy in new series

SUBSCRIBER ONLY

Travel | travel: the 10 most spectacular castles around the world.

• Cast & crew
• User reviews

A journey across a dystopian future America, following a team of military-embedded journalists as they race against time to reach DC before rebel factions descend upon the White House. A journey across a dystopian future America, following a team of military-embedded journalists as they race against time to reach DC before rebel factions descend upon the White House. A journey across a dystopian future America, following a team of military-embedded journalists as they race against time to reach DC before rebel factions descend upon the White House.

• Alex Garland
• Nick Offerman
• Kirsten Dunst
• Wagner Moura
• 13 User reviews
• 54 Critic reviews
• 79 Metascore
• 1 nomination

• American Soldier (Middle East)

• Checkpoint Soldier

• Hanging Captive
• Commercial Soldier Mike

• Commercial Corporal

• Commercial Soldier #1

• Aid Worker Refugee Camp
• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

New and Upcoming Action Movies & Series

More like this

Did you know

• Trivia Actors Nick Offerman and Jesse Plemons weren't known to be a part of the project until the first trailer dropped in December 2023. Plemons even denied the rumor that he was in the film earlier that year.

Unnamed Soldier : What kind of *American* are you?

• Connections Featured in Nerdrotic: Woke Hollywood's Civil WAR? Disney DESTROYS Hasbro - Nerdrotic Nooner 388 with Chris Gore (2023)

User reviews 13

• rocketwoods
• Apr 9, 2024
• How long will Civil War be? Powered by Alexa
• April 12, 2024 (United States)
• United States
• United Kingdom
• Ngày Tàn Của Đế Quốc
• Atlanta, Georgia, USA
• See more company credits at IMDbPro
• $50,000,000 (estimated)

Technical specs

• Runtime 1 hour 49 minutes
• Dolby Digital
• IMAX 6-Track

Related news

Contribute to this page.

• See more gaps
• Learn more about contributing

More to explore

Recently viewed