More Thoughts on 'The Menu'

and a link to the piece my friend and I wrote about it!

Photo: Searchlight Pictures, The Menu (2022)

Image description: Margot (Anya Taylor-Joy) staring at a large cheeseburger she holds with both hands. Her forearms are covered in blood.

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Recently my good friend, Marika, and I wrote a piece for The Conversation on the film The Menu (2022). 

If you’re unfamiliar with the premise, here’s the no-spoiler rundown I gave my dad:

It’s a hilarious satire about these annoying rich people who go to an exclusive restaurant on a secluded island and get terrorized by the exhausted and overworked kitchen staff. There is also this diner, Margot (Anya Taylor-Joy), who’s not actually supposed to be there but was hired as a last-minute date by this insufferable foodie man named Tyler (Nicholas Hoult). Everyone except for Margot has their head up their own ass. 

Though the general consensus is that it’s a great film (I loved it), it’s been really interesting to see how many reviews have missed the fact that we, the viewers, are asked to experience each course of the film– the whole menu– with the character Margot. 

Margot’s real name is Erin and she’s a sex worker hired by Tyler to join him at Hawthorn because of the restaurant’s two-diner policy. This is an especially important piece of information that I won’t expand on more lest I spoil the film. Though, if you’re worried about spoilers I recommend stopping here, watching the film, and coming back once you have!

…Okay, you’ve been warned.

Photo: Eric Zachanowich. Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures.

Image description: The diners and chef look out of a floor-to-ceiling window towards the camera.

There are reviews and think-pieces about the dark horrors of the film, about its commentary on the garbage service workers must endure, and some class analyses. All compelling. However, a lot of these seem to focus on, and reinforce the binary between, those serving and those being served–or, as Chef Julian Slowik (Ralph Fiennes) puts it, between “givers” and “takers”— while missing that this binary gets blown apart (haha) by the film’s end. 

Most of these pieces barely dig in to Margot, who is a character that, as Marika and I suggest, complicates the neat dichotomy of giver/taker as she is both at once.

We’re curious about the kinds of dynamics/ problems/ possibilities that are made visible when viewers are poised to experience a restaurant like Hawthorn with someone like Margot, who is wholly unimpressed by its flares and egotism. What do we see and notice as viewers when we experience Hawthorn with someone who wants to taste and eat (and who is also subjected to clients like Tyler)?

You can read more of our thoughts here:

Horror comedy ‘The Menu’ delves into foodie snobbery when you’re dying for a cheeseburger

Certainly there is lots going on in this movie and many ways to read and interact with it, but it seems a shame that, despite her being the protagonist of the film, Margot’s disruptiveness has not gotten more attention. I mean, I’m not terribly surprised that Margot’s “pedestrian” relationship to food and eating hasn’t been taken more seriously in a film that everyone in the food world seems to think is only speaking to fine dining. Certainly it is about fine dining, its class dynamics and the unsustainable labour practices in restaurants and the service industry broadly, but The Menu asks viewers to think about so much more than this! 

What is delightful about Margot is not only her absolute rejection of the restaurant’s pretentiousness. It is not only her subtle mockery of the other diners, or that she enacts the viewer’s dream of slugging Tyler in the face. It’s how she savours that fucking cheeseburger.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the film! Leave a comment so we can talk more!

If you missed my announcement, I’m now posting twice monthly— one essay and one recipe type thing. This month’s recipe type thing is dedicated to those who, like me, are greedy tomato connoisseurs doing their best to eat more seasonally. Subscribe now to receive that on the 15th.

Reading

Fiction

• How to be Eaten by Maria Adelmann

  CW: sexual violence

  This novel isn’t really about food (there are definitely food elements, though) but about how women’s traumas are consumed by the media. 

• Milk Fed by Melissa Broder

  CW: disordered eating 

  This novel follows Rachel, a queer lapsed Jewish woman who follows restrictive eating habits until she meets Miriam, the fro-yo gal. 

• Not a book but this month I also enjoyed all of the hilarious angry reviews of Milk Fed that are mostly just people complaining about how “gross” it is. Lately I’ve been choosing books based on how gross other people say they are. If someone hates a book for being too gross, chances are I will love it.

Non-Fiction

• “Prophecies of Possibility” by Jamie Figueroa for Emergence Magazine

• Body Work by Melissa Febos

  A non-fiction about writing personal narratives.