The Menuis primarily a venue to poke fun at the self-obsessed nature of foodie culture, but it doubles as the story of an artist losing his passion. It’s packed with grim gags, but the story by Seth Reiss and Will Tracy is engaging as it keeps the audience guessing.
The Menudid pretty well at the box office, dragging in $79 million on a relatively light $30 million budget. It really found its audience when itdropped onto HBO Max shortly after release. The film has been somewhat divisive, but fans of dark comedy and the unique satirical style of former Onion writers have celebrated it.
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What happens inThe Menu?
The film takes place at Hawthorn, an exclusive restaurant island that charges thousands for each meal. Thehead chef, Julian Slowik, is one of the most celebrated artists in the world of foodie culture. The guests for the evening include a trio of corporate jerks, a food critic and her simpering editor, a washed-up celebrity and his assistant, a bored old married couple, and Slowik’s silent alcoholic mother. The lead characters are Tyler, a self-professed foodie obsessed with celebrity chefs, and his date Margot. As the guests arrive, they discover the countless unique aspects of the island that make it so well-known.
Thestory is divided into courses, mirroring the structure of the meal. After the fourth course, bodies start dropping fast, and Slowik clarifies his intentions. This will be Hawthorn’s final dinner service and no one will survive. After the big reveal, every new course introduces a new horror. Slowik has lost his passion as an artist, and he wants to punish those who stole it from him and those who profit from the work of fellow creators. He quickly discovers that Margot isn’t among the intended guests. She’s actually an escort named Erin, hired by Tyler to replace his ex-girlfriend because Hawthorn doesn’t offer reservations for one. Tyler was also warned of the evening’s direction, meaning that he willingly brought Erin here to die just so he could enjoy his final meal. Since she’s not meant to be there, Slowik invites Erin to die with the servers, rather than those who are served.
Through multiple escape attempts, Erin discovers Slowik’s past as a line cook at a small-town diner. Though he’s miserable today, Slowik was happy cooking for very little money and no prestige, but the years spent accruing both have killed the love he once felt for his art. In that, Erin finds her way out. After another failed attempt to escape, Erin delivers a brutal deconstruction of Slowik’s menu concept. She asks him for a simple cheeseburger and fries, which he lovingly hand-makes. After a single bite, she asks for her meal to go. Slowik obliges, letting Erinescape with her life. From a place of safety, Erin watches Hawthorn explode as she eats her cheeseburger and wipes her mouth with the titular menu.
What does the ending ofThe Menumean?
The Menuis an exercise in setting upcharacters like bowling pinsbefore enthusiastically knocking each one of them down. By the end, the surviving victims fully accept their death and understand Erin’s freedom. Erin is the outlier, the person who doesn’t understand this world that she’s been dragged into and refuses to acquiesce. The film frames the chef as an artist and a person who provides a service. It’s an argument against the celebrity chef mindset and for all forms of cooking as an art. Erin is the only person who manages to bring back the simple pleasure of making good food for a happy customer. With that, she gives Slowik one final moment of joy in his art, and he lets her go.
The celebrity chef is a very old concept, but the modern incarnation largely starts in the 90s with Marco Pierre White. White trained greats like Mario Bataliand Gordon Ramsay, but he was also the first English chef to earn three Michelin stars. In 1999, he retired and returned those stars, furious with the idea of being judged by people less knowledgeable than he was. He opened multiple restaurants and his cookbooks, TV appearances, and life story. The idea of a chef becoming disillusioned with all the supposed esteem of the culture and turning away from it rings true here. Of course, White was also reportedly prone to bouts of rage that led him to treat customersand employees like garbage. Slowik turns away from the same world similarly, but he chooses to eliminate every aspect of it he can reach.
The Menuis a pretty simple story about an artist losing his passion and finding revenge against those who took it from him. Along the way, it explores the idea of food as a form of art, the terrible people who enjoy the best things life has to offer, and the inherent joy of providing a service.
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