Scripted by Seth Reiss and Will Tracy – veterans,like Mylod,of TV’sSuccession –The Menutakes place over a single evening at Hawthorne,a legendary restaurant reachable only by ferry that promises a fine dining experience like no other.
On this particular night,the chef Julian Slowik (Ralph Fiennes) has something extra special planned,which reveals itself one course at a time. Straight away,however,we can see Slowik is basically a cult leader,commanding total loyalty from his staff.
How he arrived at this position is less clear,but it would be a mistake to get hung up on plausibility in general. As in the films of Yorgos Lanthimos,the goal is to create a parallel world with its own remorseless logic.
This debt is acknowledged in the casting of Nicholas Hoult,who co-starred as an absurd fop inLanthimos’The Favourite and is put through still more humiliation as an abject Slowik fanboy here.
Of the other central players,Anya Taylor-Joy as Hoult’s sceptical date remains something of a cipher – but since Taylor-Joy has one of the most dramatic faces in movies,she commands attention as far as ciphers go.