Beauty, delicious food, and beautiful scenery, when these elements appear in film and television works, I generally cannot refuse. Recently, a long-awaited eye-pleasing blockbuster was released.
The three leading actors are good-looking. As a movie about food, I don't know whether it's delicious, but the plate presentation is exquisite.
However, as the plot develops, the more I watch it, the more I feel something is wrong. The direction of the story is weird, which is both tantalizing and frightening for the audience. Unexpectedly, one weird movie of last year appeared in this way. It's The Menu.
Warning, the following content contains spoilers!
High-end Dinner → Murder Scene
Margot and Tyler, a couple in love, go on a date to a luxurious restaurant on an island one day. All the guests must take a cruise ship to the island. Only 12 guests can be served at a time, at $1250 per person.
Margot, from an ordinary family, is a little confused to hear that the meal is so expensive. Soon she finds that it's not simple indeed. The decoration and style of the restaurant are very advanced, the open kitchen, the militarized management, and a strong sense of dining rituals, all give the guests the best dining experience. To summarize, it can be called an "Internet Celebrity Restaurant Guide for a poser."
Guess who played the chef? It was Voldemort. As soon as I saw him, I knew something was wrong. He is the absolute center of the whole dinner. Do you think the customer is God? Sorry, the customers here have no choice at all. The chef is God.
The names of the dishes in the restaurant are even more weird, such as "Bread Plate Without Bread", which has no bread, only bread dip, and "Island", which is presented as a delicate island but is ordinary scallop meat and seaweed.
Later, the atmosphere became eerier, and before each dish, the chef would tell a story so that people could get a unique emotional experience before tasting the food. For example, when a dish called "Dilemma" is served by a young chef with tears in his eyes, do you think it's an inspiring story? But unexpectedly, the chef puts a gun into his mouth with great speed, and blood splashes out. The whole audience is in an uproar.
But the chef calmly reassures everyone, saying that this is only part of the "menu," and the tortillas that come next are the highlight. The crust on everyone's table is different. There are bills, cheating photos, and past scandals. The crust is printed with each customer's darkest secret.
The guests are frightened by these scenes and want to leave halfway unexpectedly price of breaking the rules is very painful, leaving a finger behind. A high-end dinner gradually evolves into a murder scene, and if they eat anymore, I am afraid they'll die.
How do guests become part of the menu?
In fact, under the packaging of beautiful women and handsome men, The Menu is a sharp and satirical film. From the most superficial level, the irony is that the environment, prices, dishes, and even the chefs of all kinds of exaggerated and fancy Internet celebrity restaurants are outrageous.
From each dish to each guest to the entire dinner and island, it is a work of art carefully designed by the chef. The food is not for eating but for appreciating. He deconstructs all the food and forcibly gives it artistic meaning, and nobody has enough to eat, only to make the guests a part of the "menu".
The plot in the film seems to be exaggerated but many things are familiar, such as taking pictures before eating. And those pompous dishes, even if the rich think they are outrageous, they will never admit it but will praise it and call it art. The most ironic thing is that one of the customers is a food critic, whose job is to pick good restaurants for the public, which has become the privilege of the rich.
Those who dare to raise objections will be regarded as superficial. Here, they not only show their wealth but also represent the identity, status, and taste of the rich. The chef plays with obedience and hypocrisy, firmly grasping the psychology of the rich, knowing that they will not resist but panic, and they are hypocritical and arrogant, invisibly cooperating with the chef.
What is the film trying to satirize?
What the chef wants to fight and destroy is these people who think that food is art. They don't care about the dishes at all. What they want is advanced experience wrapped with money. The so-called dinner is just an art exhibition in a different form.
Of course, the film theme is not food but class. A social event turns into a siege against the rich. It seems that Margot is the only exception.
Warning, the following content contains spoilers!
Margot, the only exception in the film
As a call girl, Margot becomes the most special person in the movie. While everyone is busy boasting about the exquisite food, she is the only one who speaks bluntly, saying that the food tastes flat and is not enough to eat. She even points out the weirdest thing about the restaurant: Why do you listen to him when you pay for his service?
Margot's frankness attracts the attention of the chef. Margot's poor background makes her have the most primitive feeling about food. When others are silent, she boldly puts forward that she is not full, but wins the favorable impression of the chef. From Margot, he sees the purest and most primitive love for food from customers.
Personally, the highlight of The Menu is that it uses the dishes as a coreference to all the over-packaged "works of art". The pursuit of these hypocritical substances conceals the empty heart and pretends to have style.
Just like Tyler, who is obsessed with high-end food in the film, only has a pompous self-touching. He is blind to imminent death and chaos, completely loses the ability to think for himself, and eventually becomes the most extreme and tragic victim.
As a thriller, The Menu is not perfect at all. There are flaws in the storyline and characterization. But it has a good balance between satire, thriller, and comedy, especially the absurd ending makes me want more. All in all, it is a feel-good movie and worth watching.
Well, what do you think of the irony in the movie? See you in the comments!
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