First Things First…
Ever since this came out, I was never quite sure if it’s horror. It’s only in clicking on it on Max, where I’m going to watch it, that it’s listed as both horror and thriller. So I’m pretty much going in blind here.
4 Things I Like
4. Gorgeous Food Shots
I’m as clueless as the cheating husband when it comes to the dishes served, but they look amazing. Focusing so much on exquisitely prepared food in a setting like this really brought me back to the TV show Hannibal. I wanted to try everything, whether I recognized it or not.
And I’d be remiss if I didn’t shout out the incredible looking double cheeseburger and crinkle-cut fries that serve as Margot’s ticket out of the restaurant and off the island.
3. Elsa
“You will eat less than you desire and more than you deserve.”
Elsa
Of all the staff, Elsa is my favorite. She’s brutal in her takedowns of some of the customers, especially the group of guys who work with the restaurant’s owner. They play the whole “Do you know who we are?” card. It turns out, she knows exactly who they are. She just doesn’t give a shit. And she’s definitely not going to bring them any bread.
It’s just a shame she becomes so insecure that Chef Slowik wants to replace her with Margot, which leads to a fight to the death between the two women. I didn’t want to see Elsa get her comeuppance the way I did with the rest of the staff.
2. The Worst of the 1%
The movie as a whole is a critique of the 1%. No surprise, coming from Mark Mylod, who directed and produced plenty of episodes of Succession.
But what I find funny is that, even among a group of terrible people—the business bros, the washed-up movie star trying to hang onto relevance, his assistant who’s stealing from him, the old husband who pays a sex worker to watch him masturbate and act like a daughter to him—Tyler, the pretentious foodie, is the worst of all.
Nicholas Hoult, who’s often so charming, is unbearable here—in the best way—in his lack of self-awareness over how much of a douche he’s acting like. His neediness to be recognized by the chef, his insecurity every time he thinks he made the chef mad, his terrible manners toward Margot as she doesn’t share his reverence for this food or this experience, and his total disregard for the chaos that begins erupting around them all had me believing he’s the worst person in the room, even though some of the others are actual criminals and cheaters. And that was before they reveal that he’d been told ahead of time the plan for the menu—that everyone was going to die that night—and yet he still went AND brought a date!
He’s the absolute worst.
1. Anya Taylor-Joy and Ralph Fiennes
I like Ralph Fiennes better in a role like this, where there’s something clearly sinister bubbling just below the surface, than in a role like Voldemort, where the evil is on full display immediately. Whether it’s the single clap that brings everyone to attention, or the way he explains each dish and what they do at Hawthorn, it’s clear from the moment we meet him that something is off.
I haven’t seen Anya Taylor-Joy in much, but she makes Margot by far the most likeable of the guests. Part of that, of course, is that she isn’t in the 1%—she’s much more of a “commoner,” which is why she doesn’t belong there and has thrown the chef off his game. Hand in hand with that is that she doesn’t buy into all the bullshit of the menu. She’s the only one who realizes they’re all being insulted when they’re served the dipping sauces for bread, but no bread. She thinks Tyler is acting ridiculous because of how seriously he takes the whole thing, and because he gets mad at her for not eating something she doesn’t want to eat.
And her speech is fantastic. She tells Chef Slowik…
“… you’ve taken the joy out of eating. Every dish you’ve served tonight has been some intellectual exercise rather than something you want to sit and enjoy. When I eat your food, it tastes like it was made with no love.”
Best of all is when she tells him, after some back and forth, “And the worst part is I’m still fucking hungry.”
0 Things I’m Mixed On
1 Thing I Don’t Like
1. Why Is the Staff on Board?
It’s clear Chef Slowik inspires a high level of devotion. But why is it devotion to the point of all allowing themselves to be burnt to a crisp as human s’mores?
Is it because they believe in his vision that much? Do they agree with his assessment of people like their customers representing the ruin of his art and his life?
I wish there was a little more about them to make it clear why they’d go along with all this craziness. I can buy that he’s lost his mind. He was an eccentric artist to begin with who bought into his own hype. But ALL of them, too?
Tim Matassa
