The Menu Review: Fiennes Leads Dark Comedy Horror That Entertains & Surprises

Audiences may not have much of an appetite after watching the film, but the experience, like Slowik’s promise, will be one they won’t soon forget. Directed by Mark Mylod from a screenplay by Seth Reiss and Will Tracy, The Menu is a dark, twisted satire that will leave one’s palette satisfied. Filled with ambitious twists and turns that the audience will not see coming, The Menu is a dish best served with a side of intensity and anticipation. With a solid, if disturbing, performance by Ralph Fiennes, the dark horror comedy takes a stab at exploring class, the service industry, and the ways in which the wealthy ruin just about everything. The Menu opens with Margot (Anya Taylor-Joy) and Tyler (Nicholas Hoult) boarding a boat to an island where the five-star restaurant Hawthorne, run by Chef Slowik (Ralph Fiennes) and his second-in-command Elsa (Hong Chau), is located. They — along with a snobby movie star (John Leguizamo) and his assistant (Aimee Carrero), rich finance bros (Arturo Castro, Rob Yang, Mark St. Cyr), Hawthorne’s loyal customers (Judith Light, Reed Birney), and food critic Lillian Bloom (Janet McTeer) and her editor (Paul Adelstein) — are in for the night of their lives. What begins as an evening of fine dining and food as conceptual art becomes a strange and terrifying ordeal.