The Menu movie review - Aussieboyreviews
IS THE MENU THE BEST DARK COMEDY OF THE YEAR SO FAR?
With Glass Onion, the sequel to Knives Out, yet to arrive on Netflix, The Menu is the best dark horror-comedy of the year. Extremely entertaining and endlessly suspenseful, the story is absolutely brilliant, the cast is wonderful and it’s just hilarious.
Storyline
A young couple and a group of celebrities travel to eat at an exclusive restaurant on remote island where a famous chef has prepared a lavish menu, along with some shocking surprises.
Movie Images
Movie details
Director: Mark Mylod
Cast: Ralph Fiennes, Anya Taylor-Joy, Nicholas Hoult, Hong Chau, Janet McTeer, Reed Birney, Judith Light, John Leguizamo, Paul Adelstein, Rob Yang
Writer: Seth Reiss, Will Tracy
Release Date (Australia): 24 November 2022
Runtime: 107 minutes/1h 47m
Genre: Horror, Comedy, Thriller
Country: USA
Language: English, Spanish
CONTENT GUIDE (warning: May contain spoilers)
The film features a strong sustained sense of threat inflicted by a menacing character who claims to have suffered from domestic violence as a child. The film also contains acts of violence, suicide scenes and the frequent threat of death throughout.
The film features depictions of blood spurts and large amounts of blood as a result of characters being stabbed with scissors and knives, a man committing suicide by shooting himself in the head and a man’s finger being cut off while he is held still.
The film features aggressive use of the word “f**k” throughout, in addition to the words “damn”, “bitch”, “s**t” and “**shole”.
None.
None.
The film contains verbal references to sexual acts and masturbation.
mpaa rating
R (for strong/disturbing violent content, language throughout and some sexual references)
Aussie boy's thoughts
This claustrophobic horror-comedy is extremely entertaining, darkly hilarious, cleverly suspenseful, very violent and exquisitely fresh, but it’s also making a thought-provoking point on arts, artists and the consumers. If you’re looking at picking a night to go to your local theatres, hungry for entertainment, laughs and even some decent thrills, you’ll find that this tasty treat will be the best they have to offer on the menu.
With absolutely no pun intended, the storyline isn’t too difficult to digest as the film sets us up with a group of wealthy people, mainly focusing on a young couple played by Anya Taylor-Joy and Nicholas Hoult, who travel to a remote island to eat at a restaurant where a famous chef, played by Ralph Fiennes, will be preparing a lavish menu, where they also find plenty of shocking surprises. That’s all you should know; don’t look at any spoilers. But if you’ve read the reviews from the audience and the critics, you’ll probably have heard about the overall theme on the relationships the art, artists and consumers have with obsession, arrogance and entitlement.
The main reason The Menu works perfectly is because the cast, the acting, the writing and direction all instantly click together and combine perfectly. This may be one of Ralph Fiennes’ best performances in a thriller; his character is extremely intimidating and unpredictable. Together, the rest of the cast are always sitting on the edge of their seats waiting for the next course, but it’s also the way they interact with each other that makes this film twice as fun to watch. They’re also all very good at pulling off the dark humour, because comedy can seriously be just as hard to perform as drama.
When you look at two significant elements alone, beginning with Mark Mylod’s camerawork and the sequences of either silence, talking or other forms of suitable music, those are the components that collaborate really well together and create the intensity. Majority of this movie is successfully set in one room, where it actually feels like you’re sitting at those tables waiting for unexpected acts of violence, because there are plenty of surprises to await for here. The Menu may easily be one of the most suspenseful, gripping and entertaining thrillers of 2022, and one of the best movies this year.
Thank you for reading this page and for more Aussie Boy reviews, visit Aussieboyreviews.com.