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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 .

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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

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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.

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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.

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.

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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.

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‘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.

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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.

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“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.

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The Menu Reviews

“The Menu” suggests that such fanatism to an ephemeral art which requires hard work and isolation could lead to a cult like atmosphere brewing insanity and resentment

Full Review | Jun 8, 2024

There were so many moments I loved

Full Review | Apr 24, 2024

Its A Solid B

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

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The Menu review: A deliciously wicked food-world satire

Ralph Fiennes and Anya Taylor-Joy go knives out at the restaurant from hell.

If we cannot eat the rich, at least we can enjoy their suffering on screen with a side of fermented sea lettuce and light schaudenfraude in The Menu , a glossy, skewering satire in theaters this Friday. (That it comes from a director who helmed more than a dozen episodes of Succession feels, at the least, apropos.)

Anyone who has ever casually wandered through a high-end farmers' market or been cornered by that guy at a cocktail party who wants to talk about his yeasts knows the heights of obsessive fervor and small-batch self-regard that the mere act of putting food in your body engenders among a certain subset of people with enough time and money to call themselves gourmands. For Tyler ( The Great 's Nicholas Hoult ), it seems to comprise his entire personality: Whatever he does for a living — it's never said, though it must be lucrative — his interests begin and end with the dogged pursuit of elevated eating; if you cook it (or confit it, or turn it into a gelé), he will come.

That's why he's one of a dozen people boarding a boat to a small island to have dinner at Hawthorne, a modernist temple of molecular gastronomy overseen by a celebrated chef named Julian Slowik ( Ralph Fiennes ), and paying $1,250 per head for the privilege. "What, are we eating a Rolex?" Tyler's date Margot ( Anya Taylor-Joy ) scoffs, incredulous — though this crowd probably would, as long as it were served sous-vide. Among the guests, there's a washed-up movie star ( John Leguizamo ) and his fed-up assistant (Aimee Carrero), a starchy older couple ( Reed Birney and Judith Light ) who've already done this many times before, a vaunted critic ( Ozark 's Janet McTeer ) and her toadying editor (Paul Adelstein), and a trio of braying finance bros (Rob Yang, Arturo Castro, and Mark St. Cyr). If anyone doesn't belong there it's Margot, and Julian, his unblinking gaze like an X-ray, seems to know it.

On arrival, the bespokeness of the Hawthorne experience does not disappoint. The windswept island is raw but beautiful, an entire ecosystem devoted to Julian's meticulous dishes; in the distance, a diligent staffer scurries, harvesting scallops fresh from the bay. But Elsa ( Watchmen 's Hong Chau ), the restaurant's unflappable hostess, seems to seethe beneath her faultless civility, and the kitchen staff treat Julian more like a cult leader than a man who makes entrées out of "charred milk lace" for millionaires. It doesn't take many courses — an opulent parade of breadless bread plates, elaborately tweezered proteins, and unknowable foams — for the bloody unraveling to begin.

The script, by Seth Reiss and Will Tracy, has no shortage of broad targets on its dartboard; when have the follies of the rich and feckless not been easy fodder for black comedy? Hoult is very good at playing a priggish foodie fanboy, though if his character were a dish, it would doubtless be dismissed by Julian as one-note; all acid, no umami. Light, as a tremulous Stepford wife watching her world unravel with each glass of natural wine, does an enormous amount of acting with very few lines, and McTeer plays her imperious critic with casual, note-perfect hauteur. Taylor-Joy brings a cagey survivalism to Margot, a girl who gives the sense she's had to get herself out of ugly scenarios many times before, and the notes Chau hits are delicious, a symphony of passive-aggressive bitchery.

It's Fiennes, though, who most makes a feast of his role. The Menu 's swishy, gleeful satire is not his ordinary milieu, but he's too good an actor not to turn Julian into a far better monster than we probably deserve, careening between sniffy pique, red-hot malevolence, and small, strange pockets of tenderness. The movie loses some momentum in the final third, and tends to over-egg its caricatures of all these platinum-card fools and clueless masters of the universe. But its appetite for destruction is also too much fun in the end to refuse: a giddy little amuse bouche for the apocalypse to come. Grade: B+

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Review: Art is on ‘The Menu’ as biting satire serves up some mean cuisine

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An elite, motley crew assembles for a very special dinner in the deliciously dark thriller satire “The Menu,” a philosophical deconstruction of artists and their enablers. Written by “The Onion” veterans Seth Reiss and Will Tracy and directed by Mark Mylod, who made his name in prestige television directing episodes of “Game of Thrones” and “Succession,” “The Menu” is a tightly wound, sharply rendered skewering of the dichotomy between the takers and the givers, or in this case, the eaters and the cooks.

The recipe for “The Menu” is one filet of bloody class warfare à la “Ready or Not,” a dash of cultish folk horror in the vein of “Midsommar,” a puree of “Chef’s Table,” dusted with a sprinkling of “Pig,” and spritzed with an essence of “Clue.” We go along for this ride through the point-of-view of a classic Final Girl, the spunky, sarcastic and street-smart Margot (Anya Taylor-Joy), a late addition to the guest list who is an unexpected and unpredictable element in the sauce.

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The restaurant is Hawthorne, located on a remote coastal island in the Pacific Northwest; the chef is Julian Slowik (Ralph Fiennes). The guests include a food critic (Janet McTeer) and her editor (Paul Adelstein), a group of finance guys (Rob Yang, Arturo Castro, and Mark St. Cyr), a diehard fan (Nicholas Hoult), a movie star ( John Leguizamo ) and his assistant (Aimee Carrero), and a pair of regulars (Reed Birney and Judith Light). The group submits themselves to the culinary experience they are about to have at the hands of Chef Slowik, his cult of sous chefs, and his stern hostess, Elsa ( Hong Chau ).

At first, it all seems painfully pretentious as the guests are served up dishes such as “The Island” (a scallop perched atop a rock) and the “Unaccompanied Accompaniments,” which take deconstruction to a whole new level. Then the menu becomes a walk down memory lane for Chef Slowik, taking a turn toward the uncomfortably personal, then accusatory, shocking, aggressive, and violent.

The central metaphor is plainly obvious. “The Menu” is not about food, or eating, but about the consumption of art, as well as the forces the artist finds himself subjected to while attempting to create. Chef Slowik has sold his soul for success, subjecting himself to the whims of the big money investors, the critics, the celebrities, his mindless consumers, and worst of all, his fanboys, who think they know more than the experts, and are willing to meddle too (the fanboys get it worst of all here). That’s not to say that Chef Slowik is a victim. No, he’s the antagonist here, but Fiennes plays him as a tortured soul who is attempting to reckon — violently — with his own selling out, and takes no pleasure in the process.

Reiss and Tracy have borrowed the increasingly pretentious and over-the-top world of high-end dining experiences to craft a screenplay that feels like an exorcism of sorts; a cathartic primal scream about the state of the industry of art, be it film, television, literature, visual art or food. The artist, despite his or her inclinations or inspirations, is always beholden to the critics, the investors and the fans, and “The Menu” is both a violent rejection of that paradigm as well as a darkly humorous acceptance of it all.

Mylod has taken this script, a wordy, writerly existential crisis, and presented a slick, somewhat cold, offering. The acting is flawless, Peter Deming’s cinematography crisp, Colin Stetson’s jaggedy score appropriately unsettling. If the outré ending jumps the shark, well, it’s been earned — the satisfying “Menu” has already left us much to chew on.

Katie Walsh is a Tribune News Service film critic.

Rated: R, for strong/disturbing violent content, language throughout and some sexual references Running time: 1 hour, 46 minutes Playing: Starts Nov. 18 in general release

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Summary A couple (Anya Taylor-Joy and Nicholas Hoult) travels to a coastal island to eat at an exclusive restaurant where the chef (Ralph Fiennes) has prepared a lavish menu, with some shocking surprises.

Directed By : Mark Mylod

Written By : Seth Reiss, Will Tracy

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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.

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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.

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‘The Menu’ Serves Up the Last Supper of Class Warfare

• By David Fear

Reservations at Hawthorne are notoriously hard to get. It only seats 12 guests (at $1250 a head) and does a single multi-course dining service per evening. Located on an island that also houses the staff and provides the bulk of the ingredients, it’s considered the best dining experience in the country, possibly even the world. And the chef, well…Chef Julian Slowik’s reputation as a culinary artist, an innovator and a perfectionist precedes him. Walk through the doors of this dining room, with its exposed kitchen and gorgeous views of the bay and a staff that functions with the lockstep discipline of a military brigade, and it’s like entering a cosmos dotted with Michelin stars.

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Except Chef has taken a curious interest in this unforeseen guest. She’s a substitution, and as he will later bellow, there are no substitutions at Hawthorne ! “You’re not supposed to be here,” he tells Margot, staring at her with an intensity bordering on lunacy. A few courses later, she will understand exactly why her presence isn’t part of his grand plan.

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Whether you feel The Menu ‘s concluding course — less a third act and more of an extended climax — is a worthy way of tying things up or not is a matter of taste. We’re of the mindset that it’s too clever by half, and that the way it sets up its version of a final-girl stand-off leaves you with a slight case of narrative acid reflux. Some of the clunkier aspects of this ambitious film’s gambit were already glaring before it drops the check at the table, and its ending only makes those elements stand out that much more. Still, to ding this for not completely sticking the landing — from going from fulfilling to simply filling — is to ignore so much of what this straight-outta-Jacobean-theatre chamber piece does right. Its heart and its anger are in the right place, and for a good long while, Mylod and his cast whip up the sort of slow-burning, dread-infused, darkly comic type of cri de coeur that appeals to the class-conscious and the enraged epicurious. You just wished they left it in the oven a bit longer.

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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.

Related: Menu Trailer: Ralph Fiennes Is Scary Chef In Anya Taylor-Joy Horror Movie

Expect the unexpected in The Menu . The film surprises at every turn, so much so that one begins to suspect the story could go in a number of directions and still make sense. As a biting social commentary about the wealthy elite and their need to consume and take everything for themselves — no matter what it is, including the livelihoods and joy of service workers — the film could have gone deeper. However, there is still plenty of dark humor and horror involved to get its point across without being too heavy handed. Power and wealth have an effect on art, and Slowik comments on the history of food and how it shows the discrepancy between classes. Now a well-respected chef, Slowik had humble beginnings. But it wasn’t until he was charging thousands of dollars for a dining experience that he was celebrated as one of the greats in the food industry. The rich can make or break art while simultaneously sucking the life out of the artist, and Slowik knows this first-hand. The film cleverly points to all this through the stories Slowik tells ahead of each course.

Beyond the commentary on wealth and art, The Menu also critiques foodies, who have, as Slowik states, ruined what he does. The chef is not above making an example of Tyler in what he deems a mockery to his job. Mylod infuses the film with a lot of style and, though the film rarely moves from its central location, remains engaging as the audience waits with bated breath to discover what happens next. The production design and set decoration by Ethan Tobman and Gretchen Gattuso, respectively, are impeccable, showcasing the sanitized lavishness of the fine dining experience while simultaneously creating a menacing feel to it. The musical score by Colin Stetson is eerie, which adds to the unsettling environment and the unease the characters are feeling throughout. The film doesn’t take itself too seriously, however, and it’s filled with quite a few darkly funny moments . To that end, The Menu enthralls through its satirical humor and horrifies all at once.

Fiennes is terrifying as Chef Slowik, stern, unyielding and humorous. As Slowik, the actor maintains control over his facial expressions, only allowing his character to give a facial twitch when speaking with Taylor-Joy’s Margot, someone he knows doesn’t belong at Hawthorne like the others. Fiennes is rigid throughout, but relaxes when Slowik finds a sense of joy in making a specific dish later on in the film. Taylor-Joy is equally good. She imbues Margot with a sense of heightened awareness, her character’s background allowing her to understand how ridiculous the experience is, as well as Slowik’s mindset. Nicholas Hoult as Tyler is blissfully unaware and pompous, seemingly a “nice,” if over-excited, foodie, until he reveals who he really is, and Hoult walks that fine line very well.

The rest of the supporting cast is fantastic as well, playing off of each other marvelously, though Hong Chau as Elsa is a standout among them. She has a commanding presence and the audience, through Chau’s fabulous performance, quickly understand what motivates Elsa. With an overall strong script, an exceptional cast, and a solid directorial effort from Mylod, The Menu is just itching to be devoured. Audiences may not have much of an appetite after watching the film, but the experience, like Slowik’s promise to his own guests, will be one they won’t soon forget.

The Menu premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 10. The film releases in theaters on November 18. It is 106 minutes long and is rated R for strong/disturbing violent content, language throughout and some sexual references.

A darkly comedic horror-thriller, The Menu focuses on a group of diners invited to a high-end restaurant on a private island by one of the world's greatest chefs. Shortly after arriving on the island, Margot Mills begins to realize something is strange beyond the perceived pompous nature of the menu. Her suspicions are confirmed when the night turns deadly as the restaurant staff begins to descend into a cult-like madness.

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Dark horror-comedy is bloody, funny, and tasty.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Talks at length about artistry and the mysterious,

Margot is the first character to show skepticism t

A woman is the main character. Among the male and

Character shoots self in head: huge blood spurt, b

Dialogue about sexual advances. Brief dialogue abo

Several uses of "f--k," "motherf----r," "Jesus f--

Diners drink wine throughout, sometimes to excess.

Parents need to know that The Menu is a horror comedy about a couple (Anya Taylor-Joy and Nicholas Hoult) dining at an exclusive, high-end restaurant where the chef (Ralph Fiennes) has something sinister cooking. It's a very satisfying combination of shocks, laughs, and ideas, and it's recommended to mature…

Positive Messages

Talks at length about artistry and the mysterious, complex connection between art, an artist, and consumers of art. Artists can lose their passion, but audiences can also ruin the work with a lack of appreciation -- or an overly fastidious appreciation. Seems to argue that simplicity, passion, and love are best, while prestige, wealth, and fame can only spoil things.

Positive Role Models

Margot is the first character to show skepticism toward the movie's strange situation -- and the first to stand up for what's right and to try to save herself (and, hopefully, the others). She has a rebellious, devil-may-care attitude. She's not exactly admirable, but she's a fighter.

Diverse Representations

A woman is the main character. Among the male and female diners, there are two Asian men, a Black man, and a Latino man; one woman presents as Latina. All are shown to be flawed or crooked in various ways. Among the chefs, there are a few women (one is Asian), but many are White men; head chef is a White man.

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Violence & Scariness

Character shoots self in head: huge blood spurt, blood on floor. Person's finger chopped off, bloody wound. Person stabbed in thigh with scissors. Characters fight over knife; one is stabbed in the neck, gurgling blood. Person hangs self with necktie. Someone is drowned. Another person burns in flames. Other characters die. Chase through woods. Woman jumping at man, slapping him. Explosion.

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Sex, Romance & Nudity

Dialogue about sexual advances. Brief dialogue about infidelity.

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Several uses of "f--k," "motherf----r," "Jesus f---ing Christ," "s--t," "bulls--t," "a--hole," "goddamn," "badass," "pr--k," "hell," "whore," and "oh my God." "Jesus Christ," "Jesus," and "Christ" used as exclamations.

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Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Diners drink wine throughout, sometimes to excess. Main character smokes cigarettes. Brief mention of a character having a DUI.

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Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that The Menu is a horror comedy about a couple ( Anya Taylor-Joy and Nicholas Hoult ) dining at an exclusive, high-end restaurant where the chef ( Ralph Fiennes ) has something sinister cooking. It's a very satisfying combination of shocks, laughs, and ideas, and it's recommended to mature foodies. Expect gory moments, including blood spatters, a gunshot to the head, a severed finger, stabbing, hanging, a fight over a knife, gurgling blood, a character burning, and more death. Characters use words such as "f--k," "motherf----r," "s--t," "a--hole," "goddamn," "Jesus Christ" (as an exclamation), and more, and there's some dialogue about sexual advances and infidelity. The main character occasionally smokes cigarettes, and all the diners drink wine, sometimes to excess. There's also a mention of a character having a DUI. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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• Parents say (12)
• Kids say (22)

Based on 12 parent reviews

Graphic suicide scene

Unpredictable, occasionally violent thriller is funny and original, what's the story.

In THE MENU, Margot ( Anya Taylor-Joy ) and Tyler ( Nicholas Hoult ) prepare for an evening out at the exclusive Hawthorne facility, where a meal costs $1,250 per person. Tyler is a passionate foodie and a huge fan of Chef Julian Slowik ( Ralph Fiennes ), who runs the restaurant. Only 12 customers will be dining tonight, and the night's menu is designed to tell a specific story. Things start getting strange when the staff discover that Margot isn't on the reservation list (she's taking the place of Tyler's ex-girlfriend) -- and stranger still when the guests are given a bread plate with no bread. But when a sous chef presents his creation as one of the courses and then shoots himself in the head, the guests truly begin to wonder whether it's all part of the show ... or if something more sinister is cooking.

Is It Any Good?

It's complete nonsense, but this very dark horror-comedy strikes just the right notes of stone-cold humor and red-hot malevolence, making for a delectable dish that satisfies all the way down. In The Menu , the guests, as Chef Julian points out directly, never make much of an attempt to save themselves. And even though viewers might find this frustrating, there's truth in their combination of sheer disbelief and sense of decorum. The movie's wicked genius lies not only in its execution but also in its ultimate themes. As the food keeps coming and small things are revealed, some of the guests continue to enjoy the show and eat; it's a fascinating psychological and social experiment. Where does perception end and reality begin?

And even though the ultimate plan in The Menu is a whopper of a doozy, the theme behind it is a thoughtful exploration of art, artists, and their complex relationship with consumers. The Menu balances gut-level humor and horror with higher-minded themes, all with a twinkle in its eye and a gleam of its blade. Fiennes plays the chef with a clever restraint and even a bit of fatigue (he recalls, ever so slightly, his take on Voldemort), forgoing the hints of madness that many other actors usually choose for villain roles. And Taylor-Joy projects strength and independence, indignant when her date tries to shush her by snapping his fingers ("Did you just snap at me?"). Director Mark Mylod , a small-screen veteran from Severance and Game of Thrones , keeps the small-scale, one-location movie feeling fluid and kinetic. Overall, it's a palate-pleaser.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about The Menu 's violence . How did it make you feel? Was it exciting? Shocking? What did the movie show or not show to achieve this effect? Why is that important?

Would you consider this a horror movie ? Why, or why not? Is it scary? If not, what makes it horrific?

Have you ever made something for someone who didn't appreciate it? How did that feel? How does art create communication between a creator and a consumer?

How does the movie depict drinking and smoking ? Are they glamorized? Are there consequences? Why does that matter?

Does Chef Julian take responsibility for his own perceived failings? Does he blame others? What's the difference?

Movie Details

• In theaters : November 18, 2022
• On DVD or streaming : January 17, 2023
• Cast : Anya Taylor-Joy , Ralph Fiennes , Nicholas Hoult
• Director : Mark Mylod
• Inclusion Information : Female actors, Latino actors
• Studio : Searchlight Pictures
• Genre : Horror
• Topics : Cooking and Baking
• Run time : 106 minutes
• MPAA rating : R
• MPAA explanation : strong/disturbing violent content, language throughout and some sexual references
• Last updated : May 3, 2024

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The Menu review: an unpredictable and viciously funny thriller

“The Menu is a scathing, satirical thriller that makes it easy to get lost in the power of Ralph Fiennes and Anya Taylor-Joy's lead performances.”

• Ralph Fiennes' pitch-perfect performance
• A clever, biting script
• A well-cast ensemble
• Several underwritten supporting characters
• A third act that gets a little too silly
• Two last-minute twists that fall flat

The Menu is a charbroiled, scathing piece of genre filmmaking. Its script, which was penned by Seth Reiss and Will Tracy, takes so many shots at so many targets that the film ends up having the same texture and bite as a marinated bird that’s still got pieces of buckshot in it. If that makes it sound like The Menu is a scattered blast of satire, that’s because it is, and not all of the shots that the film takes prove to be as accurate as others. It is, nonetheless, one of the more enjoyable and engaging social thrillers that have come out of Hollywood’s ongoing post- Get Out era .

That’s due, in no small part, to how The Menu cleverly uses the increasingly popular realm of avant-garde cooking as a vehicle to make many of its often blisteringly funny critiques of the world’s social and financial elite. By setting its story in a field that has only been explored in a handful of recent films, The Menu is largely able to keep many of its increasingly common social critiques from growing stale. The success of the film can also be directly linked to Ralph Fiennes’ straight-faced, pitch-perfect performance as the orchestrator of all of The Menu ’s many unpredictable thrills, chills, and laughs.

Fiennes stars in the film as Julian Slowik, a celebrity chef who has taken to living full-time on the isolated island where his high-end restaurant, Hawthorne, is located. The Menu doesn’t follow Slowik, though. Instead, it takes the perspective of Margot (Anya Taylor-Joy), a woman who has been invited by Tyler (Nicholas Hoult) to take part in an exclusive night of dining at Hawthorne. The pair are joined on their voyage by a number of snobbish patrons, including an arrogant food critic (Janet McTeer), a has-been movie star (John Leguizamo), and a trio of oblivious financial sector bros.

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Once Tyler, Margot, and the rest of Slowik’s diners arrive for their night at Hawthorne, though, things quickly begin to take a dark, surprisingly morbid turn. Before long, it’s clear that Slowik’s plans for the evening aren’t nearly as simple as his latest batch of patrons expected. His vision for the night is threatened, however, by the presence of Margot, who Tyler invited at the last minute after his original date (understandably) broke up with him.

Margot’s arrival allows The Menu to become not only a high-tension thriller , but also a battle of wills between her and Fiennes’ Slowik, who she has far more in common with than either might initially think. Although that might sound like a lot for The Menu to take on, especially given the delightfully mean-spirited streak of satire that runs throughout it, the film manages to successfully blend its thriller, horror, and comedy elements together for most of its runtime. Even in the moments when The Menu leans a little too hard into comedy or horror, most of which occur during its messy third act, the film always corrects itself quickly enough to stop it from going totally off the rails.

The film’s performers also clearly understand the assignment that they’ve been given and, as a result, everyone on screen manages to turn in performances that feel both slyly tongue-in-cheek and totally committed. Of the film’s many performers, no one stands out quite like Fiennes, though, who is given a role in The Menu that allows him to fully weaponize some of his greatest strengths, including his unique ability to combine Slowik’s attitude of knowing arrogance with a kind of raw, untempered rage.

Opposite him, Taylor-Joy turns in another reliably commanding performance in a role that really only lets her really spread her wings once, though the moment in question is one of the best that The Menu has to offer.  Hoult, meanwhile, gives a totally clueless performance as the ultra-annoying Tyler that not only calls to mind his scene-stealing turn in Yorgos Lanthimos ’ The Favourite , but which also cements him as one of the more quietly versatile actors of his generation. Hong Chau makes a similarly effective mark as Elsa, the tempered but ruthless second-in-command to Fiennes’ Slowik.

Behind the scenes, director Mark Mylod and editor Christopher Tellefsen ensure that The Menu maintains a fairly brisk pace for the entirety of its 106-minute runtime. Even the film’s exposition-heavy opening prologue clips by quickly, thanks to the operatic, almost Bong Joon-ho-esque cutting style that Mylod and Tellefsen implement throughout it. While there are moments when it seems like The Menu could stand to be a little nastier and more gnarly, Mylod wisely knows when to pause his constantly roving visual style in order to allow the film’s more uncomfortable scenes to truly breathe and build.

As has been the case with many of the social genre thrillers that Hollywood has produced over the past five years, The Menu doesn’t totally stick its landing. The film’s third act, in particular, attempts to stack gag-upon-gag-upon-gag in the hopes of heightening The Menu ’s stakes and tension, but most of them just end up creating unnecessary logic gaps. Those moments inevitably end up preventing The Menu from emerging as the kind of artfully prepared, five-star meal that its fictional chefs so desperately want to deliver. What The Menu does provide, though, is the kind of admirably bare-bones experience that’ll leave most patrons smiling and, above all else, satisfied.

The Menu is now playing in theaters nationwide. For more on the film, read our article on The Menu ‘s ending, explained .

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The film's opening shot throws viewers headfirst into a swampy, gray world that seems, at first, to be perpetually covered in fog. It's an image that makes Vesper’s connections to other industrialized sci-fi films like Stalker undeniably, palpably clear. However, once Vesper escapes the foggy wasteland of its opening scene, it begins to flesh out its futuristic reality with rich shades of greens and colorful plants that breathe and reach out toward any living thing that comes close to them. While watching the film does, therefore, often feel like you’re being led on a tour through an industrial hellscape, it also feels, at times, like a trip down the rabbit hole and straight into Wonderland.

Entergalactic isn’t like most other animated movies that you’ll see this year — or any year, for that matter. The film, which was created by Scott Mescudi a.k.a. Kid Cudi and executive producer Kenya Barris, was originally intended to be a TV series. Now, it’s set to serve as a 92-minute companion to Cudi’s new album of the same name. That means Entergalactic not only attempts to tell its own story, one that could have easily passed as the plot of a Netflix original rom-com, but it does so while also featuring several sequences that are set to specific Cudi tracks.

Beyond the film’s musical elements, Entergalactic is also far more adult than viewers might expect it to be. The film features several explicit sex scenes and is as preoccupied with the sexual politics of modern-day relationships as it is in, say, street art or hip-hop. While Entergalactic doesn’t totally succeed in blending all of its disparate elements together, the film’s vibrantly colorful aesthetic and infectiously romantic mood make it a surprisingly sweet, imaginative tour through a fairytale version of New York City.

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In God's Creatures' third act, however, Holmer and Davis’ steady grip becomes a stranglehold, one that threatens to choke all the drama and suspense out of the story they’re attempting to tell. Moments that should come across as either powerful punches to the gut or overwhelming instances of emotional relief are so underplayed that they are robbed of much of their weight. God's Creatures, therefore, ultimately becomes an interesting case study on artistic restraint, and, specifically, how too calculated a style can, if executed incorrectly, leave a film feeling unsuitably cold.

'The Menu' Serves Up a Wickedly Delicious Comedy

Director Mark Mylod delivers a dark but juicy comedy featuring excellent performances from Anya Taylor-Joy, Ralph Fiennes and the entire cast.

The cast of 'The Menu.' Photo by Eric Zachanowich. Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures. © 2022 20th Century Studios All Rights Reserved.

The new dark comedy ‘ The Menu ,’ which was directed by Mark Mylod (‘ What’s Your Number? ’), opens in theaters on November 18th. Produced by Adam McKay (‘ Vice ’) and Will Ferrell (‘ Spirited ’), the film takes an exaggerated look at celebrity chefs and “Foodie culture” and in doing so, serves up one of the best movies of the year!

The story follows Margot ( Anya Taylor-Joy ) and Tyler ( Nicholas Hoult ), a young couple that travels to a private island to experience celebrity chef Julian Slowik’s ( Ralph Fiennes ) acclaimed restaurant, Hawthorne. The restaurant specializes in molecular gastronomy, with everything grown on the island, and treating the food more like conceptual art.

Other guests at the dinner include food critic Lillian Bloom ( Janet McTeer ), her editor Ted ( Paul Adelstein ), a wealthy couple ( Reed Birney and Judith Light ), a movie star ( John Leguizamo ) and his assistant (Amiee Carrero), and three “Wall Street-type” investors ( Arturo Castro , Mark St. Cyr, and Rob Yang ). But the dinner soon takes a terrible turn when the guests realize that they were all invited for a nefarious reason, and that Chef Slowik plans to take make an example out of all of them.

(L to R): Judith Light, Reed Birney, Paul Adelstein, Janet McTeer, Anya Taylor-Joy, Nicholas Hoult, John Leguizamo, Aimee Carrero, Rob Yang, Arturo Castro, and Mark St. Cyr in the film 'The Menu.' Photo by Eric Zachanowich. Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures. © 2022 20th Century Studios All Rights Reserved.

While not a mystery per se, ‘The Menu’ reminded me a lot of ‘ Knives Out ,’ which is ironic since that sequel is being released next month on Netflix . But instead of being a “Whodunit” it’s more of a “how will it be done” type of story since we know from the beginning that something is not right about this island restaurant and Chef Slowik’s intentions. The tone of the film is dark, but it is also quite funny, with the humor coming out of the awkwardness of the social situation the characters are in.

The film also has a lot to say about class, wealth, and the social media enhanced celebrity worshiping world we all find ourselves now living in. While the lead characters have names, you will notice many of the other characters are only known by their titles like Leguizamo’s “Movie Star” character. I would imagine this was done on purpose by the writers to establish the idea that what they represent is more important than who they really are.

Originally set to be directed by Alexander Payne (‘ Sideways ’), Mark Mylod ended up making the film and it’s by far the best of his career, making him a director that I would keep my eye on. He balances the different tones of the film masterfully, and moves the camera around the restaurant and kitchen with ease, as if we were actually there, adding to the mystic of the film. The set design is also impressive, with a fantastic modern tone and colors popping off the well shot and gorgeous looking food.

However, it’s the characters and performances that really make the movie worth watching. The supporting cast is excellent, even in their somewhat limited roles. John Leguizamo perfectly captures the insecurities of a falling movie star, while Aimee Carrero pulls a lot of sympathy as his assistant, Felicity. Arturo Castro, Mark St. Cyr and Rob Yang also portray their “Wall Street Bros” characters well and add to the drama of the film. Veteran actress Judith Light (‘Who’s the Boss?’) also shines as a wealthy wife just realizing that her husband is a cheat.

(L to R): Janet McTeer, Nicholas Hoult, Anya Taylor-Joy, and Paul Adelstein in the film 'The Menu.' Photo Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures. © 2022 20th Century Studios All Rights Reserved.

Nicholas Hoult’s role as Tyler is the weakest spot for me, but I don’t think it was the actor’s fault. The character is not as well written as the others and struggles at times to stay as interesting as the other characters in the scene. But ultimately the character is revealed to be not as nice as he seems, and the actor does his best to layer that throughout his performance.

In the end, it’s Anya Taylor-Joy and Ralph Fiennes performances that make the film work, and the exploration of their characters’ interesting relationship. Taylor-Joy gives one of her best performances to date as the over-her-head Margot, who’s only chance at survival is to show the Chef her authentic self.

Fiennes is absolutely commanding in the role and carries the movie’s dark comedic tones and pacing with ease. While his actions could easily be labeled “crazy,” the actor is almost able to convince the audience that the Chef is in the right, which is quite impressive given his motivation and actions. Fiennes also has great chemistry with Taylor-Joy, and the connection between the two characters really resonates.

(L to R) Anya Taylor-Joy and Ralph Fiennes in the film 'The Menu.' Photo by Eric Zachanowich. Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures. © 2022 20th Century Studios All Rights Reserved.

Without giving anything away, I did have an issue with how the film ended up treating a few characters that I felt didn’t completely deserve their outcome, namely Light and Carrero’s characters, who seemed more like ignorant accomplices than the actual “terrible” people Slowik wants to punish. Yet it seems like that was the point, that someone can be held responsible for someone else’s actions just by being complicit themselves.

In the end, ‘The Menu’ is a fun and fascinating movie that explores class, wealth, and the strange social media and celebrity driven society that we all live in. With stunning directorial work from Mylod, and excellent performances from Fiennes, Taylor-Joy, and the supporting cast, ‘The Menu’ should have a good shot at several nominations this coming awards season.

Ralph Fiennes in 'The Menu.' Photo by Eric Zachanowich. Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures. © 2022 20th Century Studios All Rights Reserved.

‘The Menu’ receives 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Jami Philbrick has worked in the entertainment industry for over 20 years and is currently the Editor-in-Chief of Moviefone.com. Formally, Philbrick was the Managing Editor of Relativity Media's iamROGUE.com, and a Senior Staff Reporter and Video Producer for Mtime, China's largest entertainment website. He has also written for Fandango, MovieWeb, and Comic Book Resources. Philbrick received the 2019 International Media Award at the 56th annual ICG Publicists Awards, and is a member of the Critics Choice Association. He has interviewed such talent as Tom Cruise, George Clooney, Dwayne Johnson, Scarlett Johansson, Angelina Jolie, Oprah Winfrey, Quentin Tarantino, and Stan Lee.

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• What Is Cinema?

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.

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The Menu Review: Wickedly Delicious

• An ingeniously clever horror-comedy
• Merciless satire of the elite
• Surprisingly appetizing, all things considered
• Maybe not scary enough for some tastes?

"The Menu," directed by Mark Mylod from a screenplay by Seth Reiss and Will Tracy that placed on the 2019 Black List , was my favorite film of the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival. That's a welcome surprise, considering the festival also featured great new movies from Steven Spielberg , Rian Johnson , and Jordan Peele among others. I have no clue if this thing is going to be a hit in theaters; it might be too grotesque to become a traditional awards season contender while also not quite enough of a typical horror film to be a sure thing at the box office. Those who see it and love it, however, are sure to want to tell all their friends about it.

Honestly, you might not want to know any more about this movie before seeing it — I've already told you that it's great, and it's the sort of movie that's likely best to go in cold for. Even the full trailer might arguably reveal too much, though thankfully there are enough twists beyond what the trailer shows to keep you on your toes. The rest of this review will avoid spoilers beyond what's been shown in the trailer, but fair warning: If you're sold on "The Menu" already, you might not want to read any further in this review until after you've seen the film.

A hilarious eat the rich satire

"The Menu" joins the Cannes Palme D'or winner "Triangle of Sadness" and the "Knives Out" sequel "Glass Onion" in a 2022 mini-trend of satires about rich people stuck together in isolation on an island. In this case, the island is Hawthorne, home to a high-end restaurant owned by Chef Slowik (Ralph Fiennes) as well as all the farms and resources needed to procure the food for its fine dishes. The 12 guests dining at Hawthorne in the film represent a wide cross-section of the one percent: actors, athletes, food critics, and finance bros.

Margot (Anya Taylor-Joy) is the odd one out in this crowd as a woman from a working class background being treated to this exclusive meal by her date Tyler (Nicholas Hoult), an obsessive foodie who's also unusual in being the only one to be genuinely into Chef Slowik's high-concept courses and figuring out the "story" of the night. Of course, in his worship of the Chef, he misses the soon-obvious point of the night's meal: The Chef and the restaurant staff taking their revenge against their customers.

Though some speculated as such from the trailer's images of cooks hunting people in the woods and descriptions of "surprise" meals, "The Menu" is refreshingly  not another cannibalism-themed movie. It's very much got an "eat the rich" attitude, and you could compare the characters of Chef Slowik and his maître d' Elsa (a hilarious, scene-stealing Hong Chau) to Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett, but the punishments and manipulations here are far more creative than just literally eating people. One of the film's best running gags is the presentation of each "course" like they were an episode of "Chef's Table."

Much of the creative team responsible for "The Menu" previously worked together on HBO's "Succession," including director Mark Mylod, producer Adam McKay, and writer Will Tracy. The film's other writer, Seth Reiss, comes from The Onion. These are the perfect people to handle this wildly entertaining satire, and the ensemble of actors they've assembled treat the material deliciously. Originally written in 2019 but subsequently given rewrites to cheekily address the struggles of restaurants during the COVID-19 pandemic, "The Menu" works as the sort of single-location film that's become increasingly efficient to make since 2020, but its expert usage of its setting feels far more cinematic than many of its more stage-like indie peers.

Heart at the center of a twisted concoction

For the most part, "The Menu" is the sort of horror movie where there are no real "good guys," and the viewer is mostly rooting for the carnage that ensues rather than being scared of it. The moments where fear genuinely sets in are when the relatively sympathetic restaurant workers become collateral damage in the Chef's big plot, as well as those where the one fully sympathetic protagonist Margot is in peril.

Margot's presence was not part of the Chef's plan, and she struggles having to navigate the suspicions others have about her as well as figuring out where she fits between the givers and the takers. The back and forth between Ralph Fiennes and Anya Taylor-Joy is the source of the film's most compelling character development and is possibly its greatest strength overall. There is a sadness in both of their stories. The Chef is still clearly a villain, but he's a weirdly likable one despite his obviously monstrous behavior.

Margot, on the other hand is easy to root for. While horror fans are likely to predict her being the "final girl," they will still be left guessing how she's going to possibly survive the evening (take three guesses; I can't possibly imagine you getting the answer right without seeing it). Margot and the Chef's character arcs offer some of the story's most meaningful twists, adding a little bit of genuine pathos amidst a film that mostly succeeds as one big hilarious lark.

"The Menu" targets the culture and pretentious of the fine dining world, but it's one I expect foodies to appreciate even when it's making fun of them (hopefully not missing the point as much as Tyler does in the movie). The final courses of Chef Slowik's meal solidify "The Menu" as sure to be mentioned alongside the likes of "Pig" and "Ratatouille" in the lists of the best movies about what food means to people. For those that can vibe with its twisted taste, it's easily among the best new films to hit theaters this year.

"The Menu" opens in theaters on Friday, November 18.

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The new film that skewers expensive restaurants and rich diners

The director of “Game of Thrones” and “Succession” has created a Quentin Tarantino-style comedy of the very blackest hue in “The Menu”.

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There is an entire genre of films devoted to food and restaurants, but The Menu is something different. A foodie horror movie, it’s also a comedy of the very blackest hue – darker than caviar and ladled out in equally parsimonious spoonfuls.

It’s not the first feature that has remorselessly satirised trendy people paying a fortune for meals with artistic pretensions, but most of those earlier efforts, such as Daniel Cohen’s The Chef (2012) , are playful, screwball comedies. The Menu plays for keeps.

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‘ultraman: rising’ review: a famous japanese franchise gets a heartwarming american reboot.

The Netflix animated feature, directed by Shannon Tindle and co-directed by John Aoshima, offers a new take on a classic Japanese series created in the 1960s.

By Jordan Mintzer

Jordan Mintzer

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For millions of Japanese viewers as well as countless fans across the globe, the Ultraman franchise, pitting a giant superhero against giant kaiju creatures of all shapes and breeds, has been a popular staple since it was first launched as a TV series in the 1960s.

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Deepening empathy and understanding of the black american diaspora through food (guest column), netflix plans immersive experiences in texas, pennsylvania, ultraman: rising.

Much of that material won’t seem new, especially for anyone who’s already seen a Godzilla flick, or one of the Pacific Rim movies, or Big Hero 6 . But writer-director Shannon Tindle and co-writer Marc Haimes, who wrote the script for Kubo and the Two Strings , do their best to enhance it: Not only do they add a brand new subplot involving the baseball career of Kenji “Ken” Sato aka Ultraman (voiced by Christopher Sean), but they introduce a real emotional arc about the hero’s traumatic past, as well as an extremely cute fatherhood narrative where Ultraman is suddenly forced to raise an orphaned child.

That child, Emi (Julia Harriman), is no ordinary baby but a pint-sized kaiju dragon, which means she’s about the size of a garbage truck. Pink and cuddly, and with the ability to destroy a state-of-the-art mansion in one temper tantrum, Emi is picked up by Ultraman after a duel with Gigatron, one of many creatures the hero battles as a professional monster-fighter — a job he does while also holding down a career as a professional baller.

If the Spider-Man motto is “with great power comes great responsibility,” the Ultraman motto, at least as the American reboot attempts to explain it, is about using “power to bring balance.” It’s a very Zen-like approach to the superhero métier that’s illustrated by Ken trying to juggle two taxing jobs while also raising the adorable but untamable Emi, who gets more and more unwieldy as he grows older, projectile vomiting and pooping with extreme kaiju force.

While the original Ultraman shows were memorable for their epic live-action battles between monster and man (well, a massive man powered by alien forces and supreme technology), Ultraman: Rising will likely touch viewers, especially ages 10 and under, for its story of a young man trying to be a good dad while also reconnecting with his own estranged father, in what ultimate becomes a parable about responsible parenting.

That doesn’t mean Tindle, who co-directed the film with John Aoshima ( Maya and the Three , DuckTales ), doesn’t deliver the goods when it comes to the genre’s requisite city fights, including an epic attack above the Tokyo Dome while Ken is standing at home plate. The filmmakers also offer up a decent new villain in the form of Dr. Onda (Keone Young), an evil scientist who heads up the KDF (Kaiju Defense Forces) and who was traumatized by his family’s death during a monster attack. Fatherhood, yet again.

Either way, the fight is likely to keep going as long as there are giant monsters roaming about and brave superheroes to stand up to them — and IP that can regenerate itself for decades to come.  

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Movie Review: Andrew McCarthy hunts the ‘Brat Pack’ blowback in the documentary ‘Brats’

This image released by ABC News Studios shows Demi Moore, left, and Andrew McCarthy in a scene from the documentary “Brats.” (ABC News Studios via AP)

This image released by ABC News Studios shows Ally Sheedy in a scene from the documentary “Brats.” (ABC News Studios via AP)

Ally Sheedy, left, and Demi Moore attend the “Brats” premiere during the Tribeca Festival at BMCC Tribeca Performing Arts Center, Friday, June 7, 2024, in New York. (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP)

This image released by ABC News Studios shows Rob Lowe in a scene from the documentary “Brats.” (ABC News Studios via AP)

Andrew McCarthy, from left, Ally Sheedy, Demi Moore and Jon Cryer attend the “Brats” premiere during the Tribeca Festival at BMCC Tribeca Performing Arts Center, Friday, June 7, 2024, in New York. (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP)

Andrew McCarthy attends the “Brats” premiere during the Tribeca Festival at BMCC Tribeca Performing Arts Center, Friday, June 7, 2024, in New York. (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP)

Demi Moore attends the “Brats” premiere during the Tribeca Festival at BMCC Tribeca Performing Arts Center, Friday, June 7, 2024, in New York. (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP)

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He’s 61 now, well-off and trim. He has many accomplishments as an actor but there’s this one thing he finds hard to shake: Back in 1985, he got called something.

During the Reagan administration, rising star Andrew McCarthy was lumped into an amorphous group of young actors who were changing Hollywood. They were called the “Brat Pack.”

Now, it’s never nice to be called a “brat” or to lose your individuality to a pack, but McCarthy and the members of this collective — Emilio Estevez, Molly Ringwald, Demi Moore, Ally Sheedy, Judd Nelson, Rob Lowe and maybe Anthony Michael Hall — seemed to implode.

“That changed my life,” says McCarthy, who starred in “Pretty in Pink” and “St. Elmo’s Fire.” After being branded, the so-called bratty actors scattered, not wanting to work together again. The stigma, McCarthy says, was “defining.” He has PTSD, he suggests.

Andrew McCarthy, from left, Ally Sheedy, Demi Moore and Jon Cryer attend the “Brats” premiere in New York. (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP)

Now almost 40 years later, McCarthy hit the road to star in and direct his new Hulu documentary, “Brats,” trying to get a handle on the label and how some of the pack handled it.

First stop is a wary Estevez, who acknowledges that the Brat Pack term had some early benefits but was ultimately “more damage than good.”

“It created the perception that we were lightweights,” he adds.

Then there are visits to Sheedy, Moore, Lowe, Jon Cryer, Tim Hutton and Lea Thompson — all who commiserate with McCarthy. (Ringwald and Nelson are notable absences, perhaps still nursing wounds .) These visits have the feeling of therapy sessions.

“Marty Scorsese, Steven Spielberg is not going to call up somebody who’s in the Brat Pack,” McCarthy tells Estevez, who admits to pulling out of a movie at the prospect of teaming up with McCarthy.

(Not to be rude, but the Brat Pack-adjacent Tom Cruise did a movie with Scorsese, “The Color of Money,” Moore became the hottest thing in Hollywood in the ‘90s and Robert Downey Jr., also Pack-adjacent, just took home an Oscar.)

As he pays one former colleague after another a visit at their well-appointed homes, the heat of injustice has dissipated. Moore’s estate with its tasteful wood panels, shaded pool, massive glass walls and Japanese-inspired minimalism doesn’t exactly scream, “That label from 1985 really destroyed my life.”

The doc is scored well, with songs by The Cure, Lou Reed and Steve Winwood, “Forever Young” by Alphaville and a haunting “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” cover by Zoe Fox and the Rocket Clocks.

Rob Lowe in a scene from the documentary “Brats.” (ABC News Studios via AP)

But McCarthy’s visual style is too fragmented, happy to capture his scrambling camera and sound operators in the frame and changing up his shots from guerilla-style jerky iPhone images to tasteful, polished portraits. His use of old clips is excellent, incorporating not just scenes from movies but TV interview outtakes, too.

A more interesting thing happens in McCarthy’s road movie by the halfway mark — it becomes a sort of celebration of Brat Pack movies. Cultural observer Malcolm Gladwell talks about the generational transition in Hollywood, while Susannah Gora, who wrote “You Couldn’t Ignore Me If You Tried” about the Brat Pack’s impact, notes that teens in the Midwest were singing British New Wave synth-pop tunes thanks to McCarthy.

Pop culture critic Ira Madison III zeroes in on the lack of diversity in Brat Pack movies, “Less Than Zero” writer Bret Easton Ellis notes the influence the movies had on his work, and screenwriter Michael Oates Palmer comments that Brat Pack movies were the first to take “young people’s lives seriously.”

These are the building blocks of a better movie — Gladwell cutely mentions that he used parts of Cryer’s character Duckie from “Pretty in Pink” as his identity in high school — but McCarthy isn’t willing to stray.

Andrew McCarthy attends the “Brats” premiere. (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP)

He comes across as a very thoughtful guy, able to quote Tennessee Williams and Eugene O’Neill, reserved, shy and wry, so often deep in his feelings. But this bratty label he cannot shake. He also wrote about it in “Brat: An ‘80s Story.” It is his Moby Dick.

That analogy works when he finally harpoons his white whale — David Blum, who at 29 in 1985, hoping to snag some attention in the journalism world, coined the phrase “Brat Pack” — a flip play on the Rat Pack — for New York magazine.

McCarthy sits down with Blum at the conclusion of the film — the aggrieved actor and the journalist meeting for the first time four decades after being dragged into the ‘80s cultural lexicon. This is the “You can’t handle the truth” moment.

And yet McCarthy is so nice that while he makes his case well, he sort of also understands Blum’s position and kind of likes him, too. Will Blum finally admit that the label is scathing? “I mean, I guess in retrospect, yes. At the time, no. I was proud of the creation of the phrase,” says the writer. They end their meeting with a hug.

Like a Brat Pack movie.

“Brats,” a Hulu release premiering Thursday, is not rated but has smoking, love scenes and swearing. Running time: 93 minutes. Two stars out of four.

Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits

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Ryan's World the Movie: Titan Universe Adventure

Ryan's twin sisters Emma and Kate get trapped in a comic book world. Ryan enters this realm to rescue them, facing adventures, battles, and mishaps while attempting to bring them back before... Read all Ryan's twin sisters Emma and Kate get trapped in a comic book world. Ryan enters this realm to rescue them, facing adventures, battles, and mishaps while attempting to bring them back before his parents discover their disappearance. Ryan's twin sisters Emma and Kate get trapped in a comic book world. Ryan enters this realm to rescue them, facing adventures, battles, and mishaps while attempting to bring them back before his parents discover their disappearance.

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Ailing redbox owner chicken soup for the soul entertainment removes entire board of directors except for chairman and ceo bill rouhana, tribeca festival 2024: read all of deadline’s movie reviews.

By Valerie Complex , Damon Wise , Pete Hammond

The 2024 Tribeca Festival kicked off June 5 with the world premiere of the documentary Diane Furstenberg: Woman In Charge , launching the 12-day New York-set fest that features narrative and documentary competitions as well as a slew of A-list panels that always seem to make news.

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Check out Deadline’s reviews from the festival, and keep checking back as new titles are added. Click on the film’s title to read our full review.

Section: Spotlight Directors: Andrew McCarthy With: Emilio Estevez, Ally Sheedy, Demi Moore, Rob Lowe, Lea Thompson, Jon Cryer Deadline’s takeaway: McCarthy directs as he narrates, like filming a series of journal entries. When he comes in contact with his fellow actors, it’s tantamount to group therapy as the release, and catharsis, is palpable for everyone involved.   

Diane von Furstenberg: Woman in Charge

Section: World Premiere Gala Directors:  Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, Trish Dalton With: Diane von Furstenberg Deadline’s takeaway: A celebration of life that captures the designer’s ongoing journey of self-discovery and reinforces her belief that there is always more to accomplish. It’s a fitting tribute to a woman who has never ceased to inspire, innovate, champion women’s causes, and live by her mantra, “see the woman, not the dress.”

Group Therapy

Section: Spotlight+ Director: Neil Berkeley Cast: Neil Patrick Harris, Mike Birbiglia, Nicole Byer, Gary Gulman, London Hughes, Tig Notaro, and Atsuko Okatsuka Deadline’s takeaway: Group Therapy is a hilarious, touching, and important film that offers a rare glimpse into the lives of comedians and the personal battles they fight.

Lake George

Section: Spotlight Narrative Director-screenwriter: Morrisa Maltz Cast: Jasmine Bearkiller Shangreaux, Syriah Fool Head Means, Richard Ray Whitman, Raymond Lee, and Lily Gladstone Deadline’s takeaway: Morrisa Maltz’s keen eye for detail makes Jazzy a standout sequel that prioritizes childhood glee and the cultural heritage that shapes us. This film serves as a reminder to cherish the innocence of youth, the simple pleasures of friendship and the importance of holding onto the essence of what it means to live life to the fullest. 

Liza: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story

Section: Spotlight Documentary Director-writer: Bruce David Klein With: Mia Farrow, Ben Vereen, Chita Rivera, John Kander, Lorna Luft, Joel Grey Deadline’s takeaway: Overall this is a worthy effort, one that maybe doesn’t tell you a whole lot you didn’t know, but Klein manages to put it all in perspective in a very watchable film about a star who against all odds managed to be, and still  is,  a survivor.

Section: Spotlight Narrative Director: Mike Ott Cast: Alfie Allen, Brett Gelman, Ashley Benson, Anthony Carrigan, Tracy Letts Deadline’s takeaway: Some may wonder why this man needs the oxygen of publicity, nearly 23 years after his own execution. But Ott’s film is a rare study of the radicalization of white working-class Americans, a phenomenon that went overground in Washington D.C. on January 6, 2021.

Section: Spotlight Narrative Directors:  Christine Jeffs Cast: Elizabeth Banks, Simon McBurney, Mickey Sumner, Rena Owen, Richard Crouchley, Acacia O’Connor, Fern Sutherland, Matthew Sunderland Deadline’s takeaway: This dark but humane drama might not be for everyone and isn’t exactly a fun watch, but the acting is superb across the board, starting with Elizabeth Banks. Christine Jeffs’ screenplay is as measured as her unflashy direction, perfect for a slow-burning story.

Section: U.S. Narrative Competition Director: Michael Angarano Cast: Michael Cera, Kristen Stewart, Michael Angarano, Maya Erskine Deadline’s takeaway: Sacramento ‘s examination of strained friendships, the fear of inadequacy in impending fatherhood, and the importance of mental health conversations are handled with a good balance of care and humor. It may not be perfect, but its charm lies in its imperfections, much like the characters it portrays.

Section: Spotlight Narrative Director: Guillem Morales Cast: Naomie Harris, Natalie Dormer, Dominic Allburn Deadline’s takeaway: The Wasp is heavy on exposition, but the acting is so engaging, it never feels like a chore. Naomie Harris delivers a career-defining performance as Heather, capturing her character’s fragility and hidden fierceness.

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'Reverse the Curse' Review: The Truth Is out There for David Duchovny

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The Big Picture

• David Duchovny writes, directs, and co-stars in an adaptation of his own book “Bucky F*cking Dent.”
• It’s a one-trick family drama that leans into every genre trope in the playbook.
• A disappointing lack of atmosphere and immersion weakens the mood.

David Duchovny struck gold with his critically adored 2016 novel “Bucky Fucking Dent,” creating perfect fodder for a cinematic adaptation. Who better to tackle the project? Why writer, director, and co-star David Duchovny. Or, given the final product of Reverse the Curse , who makes the most sense might be better-fitting terminology. Duchovny’s marriage of baseball, fatherhood, and mortality translates oddly to the screen . The whole thing plays with a zoomed-out hesitance between lackluster Hallmark insincerities and schmaltzy 1970s sitcom goofiness, drowning out the story’s tragic yet uplifting undertones with an arrhythmic sense of humor.

Duchovny stars as Tri-State widower Marty Fullilove, who’s dying of cancer thanks to a lifetime of inhaling cigarettes. Marty’s peanut vendor slash aspiring writer son, Ted ( Logan Marshall-Green ), learns the news by chance and decides to patch his and Marty’s relationship by playing caretaker. Ted and Marty instantly bicker about childhood memories that require apologies, but Marty’s trying to rewrite his story before death thanks to inspiration from his grief counselor, Mariana Blades ( Stephanie Beatriz ). That gives Ted an idea tied to the 1978 Boston Red Sox season. If the “Sawx,” Marty’s favorite baseball team, can reverse their curse and beat the New York Yankees in the playoffs, maybe Marty can stay happy and alive — even if Ted has to fake their victory .

Reverse the Curse (2024)

'reverse the curse' sees duchovny pulling back too far.

Reverse the Curse aims to pluck on heartstrings, but notes ring out of tune . There are charming interactions between father and son as hardheads embrace forgiveness before Matry’s final bow, but too often, the experience feels plasticky and bubble-wrapped. Cinematographer Jeff Powers shoots a blandly sanitized drama that points forward and presses play while production design remains reductively “Suburban Minimal.” There’s not much oomph behind Duchovny’s vision, which pulls back too far to feel any emotion.

To be a romantic baseball fan with an equally stubborn and guarded-off Boomer father and feel nothing from Reverse the Curse is the worst telltale sign.

Logan Marshall-Green plays thirty-three as a later forty-year-old in hippie-dippie cosplay , the same as Stephanie Beatriz in her nurse’s outfit. Marty’s a pain in Ted’s ass, yet they’re trying to work through a slew of problems bred from Marty’s distant parenting as the family’s breadwinning “Ad Man.” Marshall-Green shapes his performance in the typical style of sons realizing their walled-off fathers loved them very much, always at his best when comically reacting with higher-pitched disbelief when Marty breaks expectations. But, more frequently, Marty and Ted’s dynamic feels glossy and inauthentic. The actors don’t successfully roll with the tonal shifts as a “funny” fart war in a hotel room leads into a next-day scene that’s sorrowful and dour.

It’s disappointing because there are elements that succeed within the ensemble. Pamela Adlon plays a literary decisionmaker who reads Ted to filth as a generic caucasian male author with no lived-in qualities or perspective , and their banter is cheekily amusing. Duchovny wrestles a few gags free from overwhelming staleness that knock us in the gut or bring a smile to our faces, confronting the Grim Reaper with a steely acceptance (and plenty of “reefer”). Marty’s ballbusting barber-shop buddies are your average senior-aged hooligans, but they’re also nearly the highlight of Reverse the Curse . There’s goodhearted earnestness at the film’s core that rules when allowed to surface.

Duchovny Makes 'Reverse the Curse' Too Predictable

The problem becomes, well, everything else. Duchovny’s adaptation has an inevitable trajectory that operates like an assembly line product . Ted shows up, confronts Marty, and immediately crushes on Mariana. Everyone is following predetermined destinies—there are no curveballs. Marty’s Red Sox obsession doesn’t even feel thematically empowered, downplaying baseball sequences beyond newspaper headlines and radio telecasts. Marty and Ted’s rekindled relationship is the story’s focal point—that’s obvious—but with such a dearth of character, everything reads as unceremoniously mundane.

Duchovny isn’t blowing Reverse the Curse by anyone . It’s a paint-by-numbers tearjerker that comes up dry, swinging and whiffing at too many chances to knock the concept out of the park. Duchovny doesn’t demonstrate control over tonal shifts, grounded performances, or anything beyond actors playing pretend. The “Bucky f*cking Dent” anecdote is a winner, but there’s a lot more movie that feels like slump-era underachievement. Reverse the Curse calls its shot with confidence but doesn’t possess the fundamentals to bomb a home run, barely getting on base with this out-of-synch heartwarmer that’s icy to the touch.

Reverse the Curse is an underwhelming family drama that fails to knock its blend of sports fandoms and family values out of the park.

• Shout out to the few jokes that don?t clash against an otherwise serious approach.
• The bones of the story are solid.
• Reverse the Curse lacks an enthusiastic identity.
• The performances feel forced and without guidance.
• The film proves to be an underwhelmingly shallow drama.

Reverse the Curse is now available to stream on VOD in the U.S.

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