The Menu (2022) dir. Mark Mylod

THE MENU (2022) dir. Mark Mylod

movie critics: this movie is a horror

me, an intellectual: wrong! it's a comedy

THE MENU (2022) dir Mark Mylod

↳ the menu

The s’more. The most offensive assault on the human palette ever contrived. Unethically sourced chocolate and gelatinised sugar water imprisoned by industrial-grade graham cracker. It’s everything wrong with us and yet we associate it with innocence. With childhood. Mom and Dad. But what transforms this fucking monstrosity is fire. The purifying flame. It nourishes us, warms us, reinvents us, forges and destroys us. We must embrace the flame. We must be cleansed. Made clean. Like martyrs, or heretics, we can be subsumed and made anew.

THE MENU (2022) dir. Mark Mylod

Interesting Deleted Scenes/Details from The Menu

Lillian wasn't completely exaggerating when she said she put Chef on the map: He had another high end restaurant before Hawthorne, called Tantalus. Got 2 Michelin stars 2 years in, then closed up shop. Isn't heard from again until 3 years later, running a taco truck in Portland. He agreed to the interview only if he could keep his privacy, his own land, and it had to be by the water so he could source his own fish.

It's established the movie star has a peanut allergy during the tour, and this turns out to be setup for the menu's eighth course, where Felicity is ordered to force feed him a dish completely comprised of peanuts so as to kill him through anaphylactic shock.

Anne (wife of man who paid Margot to look like his daughter while jacking him off) actually couldn't eat The Island as is due to a shellfish allergy. Hers was salmon.

The broken emulsion gag escalates to where the servers literally waterboard Lillian with it.

The restaurant has hidden cameras in the dining room, so even if Elsa missed something, it still got caught.

The taco truck Chef was running was, according to him, the happiest he'd ever been, but Margot call him out on it later, asking why he parked his truck at a Food Expo where he KNEW food critics were going to be, if he wanted to be left alone.

Man's Folly was supposed to have more details about a woman chef's actual experience in the kitchen, from harassment to stereotypes.

The women DO get bread with Man's Folly, and it IS as delicious as promised. You can even see Tyler chewing on bread when Chef comes up to confront him afterwards.

Not only did Tyler bring Margot knowing she would die, he sincerely thought Chef was going to spare him. And even when called out on it, he STILL didn't apologize or take it back, because all he cared about was experiencing the menu.

Them all coming to the kitchen to watch Tyler screw himself over wasn't originally in the script. They were just supposed to watch from the dining room.

Margot makes another bid for her life before being ordered to go get the barrel. Which Chef appreciates enough to tell her so.

Margot smiles upon seeing Tyler's hanging.

Lillian realizes she's never going to get to write about this last experience, and THAT ends up being her real just desserts.

Instead of dropping the ashes to set it all on fire, Chef originally drops a match.

We never found out Margot's true fate. The boat literally stopped a half mile away, so she was stuck there.

The last scene is of firefighters combing through the burnt wreckage, and the very last thing we see is the one photo of Chef as a young man, flipping a burger, but happy.

ANYA TAYLOR-JOY in 'The Menu' (2022)

you know the thing about The Menu (2022) is that so many people came out of it being like "haha eat the rich" and yeah, sure, but really the chef's issue wasn't with the rich people, I mean he hated them and wanted them dead yes, but his issue was that he had let the world of ambition take him so far from the joy of cooking that he once felt, from the art that he loved to make, because he let himself chase status and exclusivity, when really he could have been making his art for everyone, at a certain point he did not need to be cooking for rich people he could have found people who appreciated his food because they loved food, he could have leaned into the art he loved instead of the art he was expected to make with the set dressing he was expected to make it in, and that is a critique of capitalism, but it's not an "eat the rich" type critique, it's not just rich people who have had their relationship to art changed by capitalism, we all have in one way or another, think about the phrase "consuming content", we are consuming, not savoring, and what does it mean to be an artist when being an artist means being a content creator, being consumed, and what artistic principles can you really afford to have when you need to make money to live, but what principles will you forget to pick back up when you have the money, how far gone from yourself do you have to be to no longer be able to go back? What does it mean when you haven't cooked a burger for yourself, for your friends, for someone who loves a burger, because you're always, only cooking for those who can afford you? What do you cook for yourself? Do you savor it? What art do you make when no one's watching? Can you still make art when no one's watching?

but the other thing about The Menu (2022) is that they literally don't eat the rich people. Look at me. They do not eat the rich people they are all burned alive, guests and staff, and that's Different

“You will get less than you desire and more than you deserve.” 

 Watched The Menu last night and it FUCKING ruled. Excellent. Delicious, one might say.  It has a lot to say about class but also i think if you're a creative person/artist and you think a lot about how wealth and obsession effect art this movie's got STUFF FOR YOU

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The Menu (2022)

I can no longer be hurt, Margot.

The Menu (2022) dir. Mark Mylod

little things in The Menu (2022) that I liked:

it ends with the sound of Chef Slowik Making The Clap (tm)

chasers rewarding that guy in hen house with an Egg Dish

Margot making The Entrance with the barrel

entire dynamic between Elsa and that one finance bro (who cheated on his gf Amber, that one)

"Can we have bread?" "No" exchange

Erin wiping her lips with the menu from the gift bag :)

sommelier having a laugh when he saw The Owner in angel wings

(also love how he's body language had a little bit of twirl when he was spilling wine during the dessert scene)

"Do you have student loans?" "No" "Then you die"

the reveal of why Chef Slowik invited that Actor dude (lmaooooo)

Lillian (the food critic) asking who wants more wine and all women immediately jumping on that train 'cause things got awkward and they need to change the topic skskhkjl

"I stole money from you" "I know" " I know you know" exchange

The Wife urging Margot to leave with hand gesture

“women with their backs against a raging fire they escaped from” genre

“You've taken the joy out of eating. Every dish we've had tonight has been some intellectual exercise rather than something you just want to sit and enjoy.”

The Menu [2022] Dir: Mark Mylod