Review: "The Menu" Serves a Three-Course Meal of Laughs, Shocks, and Spotty Social Commentary

Mark Mylod returns to the big screen with a refreshing social satire - even if it's bark is bigger than its bite.

December 1, 2022

In October 2004, Paypal employees Jeremy Stopelman and Russel Simmons founded Yelp, a crowd-sourcing review-publishing website meant to inform the average consumer about local businesses. As with any human necessity in the digital age, it grew beyond our wildest imaginations and now exists as a means for two separate but equally important things.

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Firstly, for Yelp to reportedly penalize businesses who refuse to line the pockets of a company that raked in $1.03 billion in revenue last year, and secondly, for people who have no idea what they’re talking about to pretend otherwise.

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In 2021, a Yelp reviewer posted the details of their experience at a Venice, California restaurant. Instead of using their platform to inform potential readers about the restaurant's merit, they tried being a critic, thesaurus and all.

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Diners didn’t eat; “Beautiful leggy models with blonde tresses shared small plates of pasta as they enjoyed stemmed glasses of wine.”

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The “reviewer” didn’t see a man seated on the patio with his dog; they “fixated on a gentleman’s sangfroid countenance and his small dog.”

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People did not sit opposite the original poster; their fellow diners were “Amazonian Gemini.”

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Of course, the shining star of any restaurant is the food, yes? What did our trustee Yelper have to say?

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The Tortelli with fig and potato with subpar parmesan fonduta “‘Twas a beige scape swimming in oleaginous yellow...”

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The “twists of pasta…” which were “reminiscent of ribbons of conscience... benefitted some undisclosed causa fortuna,” and the bread basket “contained cubes of bread like soft croutons in search of salad.”

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In other words, the food sucked.

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Pasta is reminiscent of the flour and eggs from which it got made, nothing more. Croutons do not search for salad because they are inanimate objects and thus cannot search for anything. Nothing “‘twas” anything because it isn’t 1845.

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The Internet has made everyone believe they’re a critic and that their words are worth hearing. The irony of this is recognized because currently pounding away at a keyboard is one such individual, at least in concept. I do not believe these words are worth something on principle or that the opinions are superior because I sat in a chair eating popcorn for two hours.

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I believe that, compared to someone who looks left and thinks, “Oh, Amazonian Gemini! I wonder if they will also have the twists of pasta reminiscent of ribbons of conscience benefitting some undisclosed causa fortuna,” I offer something worthwhile.

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Alas (which, hopefully, is not as dated and pretentious as saying ‘Twas), such people exist, and so Chef Julian Slowik, the deranged mind at the heart of The Menu, has "cause" to put a bunch of rich people through physical and psychological torture before burning them alive.

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Hyperbolic perhaps, but one can understand why someone of Slowik’s esteem would take issue with the guests dining at his prestigious restaurant, Hawthorne, which sources all of its ingredients from the island on which its located. It’s $1250/head, the culinary experience of a lifetime, and so it draws the very people someone passionate about food detests most: the passionless.

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We have Tyler, the self-proclaimed foodie whose extensive knowledge is surface-level, the product of a few Wikipedia articles, Google searches, and rewatches of Chef’s Table. We have Mr. and Mrs. Liebbrandt, whose fat pockets earn them a seat at the table but do nothing to bestow appreciation for the food they get served.

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We have George Díaz, a washed-up actor clinging to relevance by buying his way into a world-famous restaurant and flexing a fake friendship with the legendary chef. We have the pompous Silicon Valley collar-poppers, insisting they work with someone they work for and using the money their boss has poured into a business he cares nothing about to justify special treatment. We have the food critic who uses ludicrous musings about eating the ocean to mask the extent of her knowledge being the sight of a “broken” emulsion and the magazine editor who suckles at the teat.

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We even have the one person who’s always there, whether at a restaurant, museum, opera, art gallery, or movie theater, who isn’t “supposed” to be there because they have no role to play. Margot Mills, is an escort hired by Tyler because Hawthorne does not offer seating for one and his ex-girlfriend left him before the reservation. She has no interest in food, finds each course more ridiculous than the last, and takes no issue with “disrespecting” the culinary process unfolding in the kitchen if it does nothing to satiate her hunger.

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When The Menu zeroes in on these people and does nothing to hide who they are and their role in destroying the arts, it packs a punch, predominantly in the minor details the film’s precision lays bare. We snicker at Tyler’s choice to not only take photos against the restaurant’s request but to not even silence the camera, quickly snapping pictures to avoid detection while making himself easily detectable. We roll our eyes in acknowledgment that, of all the guests, even above the washed-up celebrity, the corrupt tech douches are the first to take off when the men get offered the opportunity to escape.

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The Menu makes no effort to hide its observations of the people a restaurant such as Hawthorne attracts but refuses to offer much of an opinion. An actor transitioning into the “presenter phase” of his career is a “name-dropping whore.” A woman who makes a career off the sycophancy of editors who embrace her nonsense about “eating the ocean” doesn’t know the nature of the supposed “map” a chef landed on with glorified chicken tacos.

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Movies like this usually falter under their lack of foundation, some principle on which they stand as the film progresses; The Menu’s refusal to truly stake a self-aware claim makes it just as engaging as frustrating. It draws a knowing laugh as Margot insults the sommelier’s description of a course’s wine pairing, which ends with a warmly assuring note that the drink contains “hints of longing and regret.”

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We appreciate the icy hostess sticking it to the entitled customer who pulls the “do you know who we are?” card just as much as a restaurant marketing a breadless bread plate as ego-stroking concept art. It uses the people who provide the experience to mock it, all while the unassuming guests, and the audience, fail to realize the people in the kitchen are self-aware. It’s a twisty game of social commentary where every participant has a role, and the audience learns just what those roles are as each course gets served. The progressing reveals are humorous and, if not insightful, refreshing.

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Still, every movie of this kind has to shatter the illusion, rip the victims from suspension and solidify the nature of the story. Doing so means something shocking: not the breadless bread plate, though the diners got caught off guard; not the laser-engraved closet skeletons, though the attendees were, once again, caught off guard. It’s something that has to take the audience out of the story and give them empathy, the same degree of shock the diners experience.

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It takes a bullet to the head.

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After sous-chef Jeremy Louden suffers the sting of Slowik’s cruel appraisal of his life, insisting he’s never going to earn what he seeks or become what he hopes to become, he removes a pistol from his chef’s jacket pocket and blows his brains out. The diners devolve into hysteria, the audience sits slack-jawed, and now the movie must find a way to do what so many like it fail to accomplish: up the ante without losing the message.

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After all, once a rollercoaster speeds up, it cannot simply slow down and stop. We demand it continues to increase speed and move us up, down, and all around. If a film wants to arrest our attention by showing a shocking suicide, it must shock or puzzle us over and over. Otherwise, the moment will feel cheap and exploitative, and we’ll wonder why a movie would jolt itself into hyperspeed only to come to a screeching halt immediately after.

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Sadly, the more outrageous the film becomes, the less able it is to say anything of value, and the more often its principles seem muddied and means of imparting them contradictory or hammy. A young female chef gets her #MeToo moment, but in such blatant fashion that what once seemed a fun send-up of culinary culture (and the ways its invaders parallel those of other art forms) feels like a limp effort at addressing issues.

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The same goes for the film’s climax, when Margot, remembering Slowik smiling in a photograph of him working in a fast food restaurant, goads him into preparing her an old-fashioned American cheeseburger and fries. The chef’s eyes swell with shock and longing; he’s unsure how to process the request but fulfills it regardless, unable to resist the only time food ever held the meaning the night’s diners pretend to see in Hawthorne.

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Five minutes later, he torches everyone by dressing them up as s’mores, which he calls an "assault on the human palette,” nothing more than “unethically sourced chocolate,” “gelatinized sugar,” and artificially refined grain… which is somehow better than processed cheese, frozen beef, and nutrient-deficient white bread.

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Besides, could a restaurant of such caliber not source the chocolate ethically, convert any of the several acres of pasture to produce whole wheat graham crackers from authentic grain, or create some new concoction to substitute for the abominable sugar glob that is the marshmallow?

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If The Menu saw the irony, it would mean significantly more. Unfortunately, the need to continually up the ante after Jeremy’s suicide leaves the film more devoted to big moments than commentary, making it derivative (Midsommar with the marshmallow-chocolate suits and fiery demise, Ratatouille with the food cracking the Slowik’s veneer) and blatant as the film goes on. Margot secures her freedom with a clever ploy, but the execution has all the subtlety of an atomic bomb, dragging on about cooking with obsession vs. love and preparing intellectual exercises instead of food a diner would want to consume.

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We get it, The Menu. We got it at the amuse-bouche.

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The Menu is enjoyable and offers quite a bit on the whole. We adore the hostess whispering to a diner that he will "eat less than he desires and more than he deserves,” foreshadowing the contempt for Margot’s “disruptive” presence by ripping her jacket off her seat, Tyler’s insistence on photographing every course despite knowing he’s going to die, the fury of a master chef who gets to make substitutions, the wronged wife being the one to encourage the escort who satisfies her husband to leave, and the unsubtle but humorous snark directed at every archetype seated in the dining room.

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Unfortunately, it will also offer a man who claims an egoless approach to reconciling the direction his life has taken while subtly motioning to his staff to laugh at his jokes and uphold their deference with each instruction. It gives us a fake foodie who appreciates what being one says about him more than the food itself, and to such a degree that he commits suicide when exposed, a slice of commentary perhaps no film could justify. It gives us a conclusion where accepting your fate means using your dying breath to buy into the philosophy that contradicts how you’ve lived your entire life.

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Movies can serve themselves well by telling us what we already know, but only by allowing us to embrace it in a way that feels unfamiliar. The Menu travels mostly uncharted waters by using the culinary world to poke fun at our culture; after all, if something can get exploited, it will. It’s even looking down on me right now, writing a review offering praise or rebuke instead of allowing the art to exist as it wishes and leaving well enough alone.

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Good for it, and it remains so for quite a while, and even by the silly ending, we applaud it for taking so long to derail. Still, movies exist as the people who make them: imperfect. The Menu is very good. It's humorous, sharp, and aware of its subjects for as long as could be expected.

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However, it ironically points out the need for the very people Slowik burns alive as punishment; nothing is perfect, not a film, book, podcast, painting, sculpture, or menu. We can't all be winners, but that doesn't mean the concept of the worst offenders does not have value. Regardless of the artist's suffering, the people deserve other perspectives, to know if something comes as advertised, to receive insight from people like them, and to see that a creator is getting kept in check. Partially to ensure that those who serve the public are what their consumers desire, but also so that, ya know, they don't show up somewhere only to get dismembered and burned alive.