The restaurant is called Hawthorn. To access the private island in which it is located, the guests, who agree to pay top dollar for the honor of tasting the dishes of a renowned chef, must board a boat which, after dropping them off , disappears in the mist. As soon as the distinguished guests arrive, being greeted by a director as rigid as she is strange (formidable Hong Chau), we know that things will go wrong. The challenge is to see how this hellish evening will unfold. And who will come out unscathed. Or not.
Around the six tables in the restaurant are customers of whom the famous chef Julian Slowik (Ralph Fiennes, impeccable) already knows everything, including the darkest recesses of their souls. Among them, a feared critic (Janet McTeer), a movie star whose films he hates (John Leguizamo), and a trio of young men who have made their fortunes in new technologies. Encouraging the guests to “taste” the dishes he will offer them rather than “eat” them, this artist-gourmet nevertheless quickly spots the presence of a young woman, Margot (Anya Taylor-Joy), who accompanies without having been announced Tyler (Nicholas Hoult), a young foodie really happy to be here.
The story is built around the special menu that the chef has designed for this evening, over a palpable tension that is accentuated from dish to dish. Theater or reality? The staging developed by Slowik, to whom an imposing brigade obeys the finger and the eye, could initially suggest a simple desire to deliver strong sensations. But maybe not, after all…
Mark Mylod, best known for directing the series Succession, creates a tense atmosphere by making the most of the unique space in which the plot takes place. And in which the characters constantly evolve. It emanates first of all a good suspense, as well as a fierce satire of the upper middle class and the culinary elite.
The Menu (The menu in French version) is a scary thriller. And still makes you hungry…
The Menu is playing in theaters.
Thriller
The Menu (VF: The menu)
Mark Mylod
With Ralph Fiennes, Anya Taylor-Joy, Nicholas Hoult
1 h 46 Indoors