The Menu Serves up a Macabre Treat

The menu is a squid ink black culinary satire that skewers the sycophants and disrespectful tourists that steal the joy from being a high end chef (or any form of artist) while also being a three Michelin star dark comedy and acting as a power fantasy of sorts for those in the service industry.

The film centres around Anya Taylor-Joy's Margot as she accompanies potential boyfriend Tyler (Nicholas Hoult) to an island to eat at the most exclusive of restraunts. The restraunt, and indeed whole island, are presided over by Chef Slowik who is idolised by his diners and inspires complete devotion from his cult-like staff. The customers comprise the worst, but all too familiar, "enjoyers" of fine dining. There's a hilariously self-indulgent critic, some wall street bro's there for the bragging rights, a washed up, name dropping celebrity and an ultra rich couple with no appreciation for the privilege they enjoy. Perhaps most ridiculous of all is Tyler himself, a gate keeping food nerd who thinks he is on a different level from all the other diners and is completely entranced by, and desperate for the approval of, "Chef". Things turn increasingly more sinister as the courses are rolled out although outsider Margot is the only one to realise early on just how off the whole thing is.

Anna Taylor-Joy, who is becoming one of the most consistent performers in the business is excellent again here and Nicholas Hoult is hilarious and odious in equal measure but the film rests on a tour de force performance from Ralph Fiennes as Chef Slowik, a man who has walked the line between genius and madness before falling (or being pushed) completely off the edge. He is both charismatic and intimidating, making it completely believable that customers would hang on his every word and his staff worship him, but you can always see the sad, broken man underneath the chef's whites.

The rest of the film matches the quality of performances, it looks great and the score is playful and menacing as required. The script is well paced with sharp dialogue and some laugh out loud moments. If you want to nit pick you could say the motivation for some of the diners being invited to the deadly dinner isn't as strong as others but then again they were invited by a madman.

9 perfectly toasted s'mores out of 10

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