The Menu: A Tense Film About the Excess of 'Haute Cuisine'.

You know what they say about fine restaurants: the portions are small, the food is bad and the bills are exorbitant. It may be a stereotype that doesn't apply to everyone, but there's always some truth to it, especially with the last part. The menu is a film that takes the whole culture that has formed around 'haute cuisine' and uses it to make a biting social satire full of tension, horror and black comedy.

Tyler and his companion, Margot, join a select group of socialites on a trip to Hawthorne, an exclusive restaurant on a private island that is reputed to be one of the best in the world. There they will sample a very special menu prepared by renowned chef Julian Slowik and his eccentric staff. But as the evening progresses, the dishes become more conceptual, while the restaurant's employees begin to behave more strangely. Diners will soon discover that there is more to the menu than meets the eye and that they may not be able to leave the table alive.

It's hard to feel excited about this film if we take a look at the filmography of its director, the British Mark Mylod, as it only consists of a handful of uninteresting comedies. But things change if we focus on his work for television. Mylod has directed many episodes of great series such as Game of Thrones and Succession. The latter is especially relevant, as it is a strong critique of the most privileged class. The director definitely took the thematic lessons from those episodes to the film we are talking about today.

The menu is a look at how pretentious and absurd the luxuries of the upper class can be. The idea of paying millions of Euros for a dinner is absurd for the vast majority of the population and that impossibility of accessing that experience is what causes so many myths to arise around it. This film argues that the mere existence of these great luxuries robs them of their true meaning and replaces it with simply being something that the rich and powerful can have.

Fine restaurants like the one we see in the movie are the best example of this. The menu says that many of their customers do not go to them for the quality of the food, but for the simple fact that they can pay for it and others cannot. They are paying for "the experience of going there," for being able to say they visited that place, not for enjoying fine dining.

One of the exceptions to this rule is Tyler, the character played by Nicholas Hoult. He is an obsessive foodie who idolizes the idea of the star chef. This film uses characters like him and a food critic, played by Janet McTeer, to denounce the snobbery and pretentiousness that surrounds not only "fine dining" restaurants, but upper-class hobbies in general.

But the excellent actors Ralph Fiennes and Anya Taylor-Joy are the real stars here. To them belong the roles of eccentric chef Julian Slowik and Tyler's companion, Margot, a woman who doesn't seem to fit the profile of the other attendees and who will become a wild card that can change the course of the evening. Margot is a stranger to this world. From the outset she seems confused by the strange "rituals" of the restaurant and is the most puzzled by the bizarre conceptual food that is placed in front of her. She will become a sort of middle ground in the conflict between the restaurant staff and the diners who see their lives threatened.

The menu is a film that feels angry at the way the arts and the sublime experiences of life were commodified to satisfy an exclusive group of people who have no appreciation for them. This is something all of us who have been deprived of pleasure for lack of money can relate to. But the development becomes unnecessarily complicated in presenting this message through its "villains".

The chef and his staff are presented as a kind of "cult". As much as we can understand the reasons that brought them to this point, we can't completely side with them or feel any real sympathy for them. There is a moment when it comes pretty close to achieving something special, when one of them talks about a case of sexual harassment she was a victim of, but the film immediately undoes it. Things get worse when we see the chef quoting Martin Luther King , but demonstrating a complete lack of understanding about the conflict between oppressors and oppressed. You have to dig deep into the film's themes to find the reasons why the restaurant workers are so "strange," which is in stark contrast to the obviousness of their other targets.

If you are the kind of audience that doesn't care much about themes and messages and just want to watch an entertaining film, don't worry. The Menu is an excellent film regardless of what it wants to say. It's a tension-filled 'thriller' that makes excellent use of black comedy without damaging its suspense. The characters are very well presented and the performances are fantastic, especially from Anya Taylor-Joy and Ralph Fiennes who we haven't seen in such a disturbing role since he was in Red Dragon. No, not even Voldemort is on their level.

We highly recommend this movie. You won't be able to get it out of your head the next time you decide to splurge at a "fancy" restaurant. In fact, it might make them feel like they're part of the problem.