The Menu

An exclusive restaurant sits on a coastal island just off shore, a restaurant where a legendary chef, world-renowned for his singular culinary experiences, has prepared a lavish menu for an exclusive clientele, all served with some shocking surprises…

The Menu is sourced from some of the same places as other films, like The Glass Onion and Triangle of Sadness, and while its knives may not be as sharp, its courses as thematically cohesive, or its flavor as strong as those two films, it is still a delicious skewering of wealth and privilege.

The Menu is the story of the eltie—the boorish wealthy, some macho tech bros, a few snobby critics, a washed-up celebrity or two, and some self-professed foodies—as they descend upon a small island for an exclusive evening at the perfectly realized vision of a famous chef. They are there for a gourmandized night of especial esteem, one where every course, every moment, every taste, is planned down to the tiniest detail by a true Master of the Epicurean, a beautifully-plated, multi-coursed meal of gourmet delights, of gastronomic wizardry, and to the night’s chosen guests’ eventually realized horror… just desserts. But the night’s diners aren’t the kind of people who are used to having to hustle to make their ends meet… or to meet their ends either, as it were… as even up to the final mignardise, they fully expect their deliverance to be served to them when they demand it.

They are the customer, after all.

But in the end, it is only the unexpected fly in the soup who understands the balance of power at play here well enough to leave this meal fully sated…

The Menu was obviously written with the recognizable rage service industry workers hold for that ugly slobbering beast known as the customer, that howling abyss of toxic neediness, smugly assured of their own righteousness, while ceaselessly demanding a groveling deference, immediately and unquestioningly, and with full gratitude, and all for the promise of a few meager coins tossed to the floor in their wake.

The Menu is about how your art can be stolen by the uncaring consumer, how their indifferent rush to devour your carefully crafted creations can silence your voice, still your hand, and ultimately drive you from the very thing you love, and how sometimes, destroying your own creation is the only form of creative freedom you have left.

The Menu is a very dark, very funny, very broad, and technically fantastic film, one filled with dread and tension. It is never subtle, and at times, yes, it’s a bit clumsy, and the script seems a little too chopped up by the end, but even still, it’s a meal more than worth digging into it.

Ultimately, The Menu will remind you that people who tip less than 20%, or who treat tipping as something punitive, are fucking assholes.

No exceptions.

Ever.