UPDATE: I had a delightful time at Mark Mylod’s “The Menu.” As this is being written, I’ve just come back home from seeing it this early afternoon.
Mylod’s film actually works very well as a double bill with “Glass Onion” — the darts shot at one percenters, the dark humor and practically the same ending. I did think it lost a bit of momentum in its final stretch, but what a wickedly savage satire this was.
What I liked most about this movie wass its delectable appetite to shock the senses, you just don’t know what comes next. It’s elevated by the talents of Ralph Fiennes and Anya Taylor-Joy — both seem to know exactly what kind of movie they’re in … clearly one influenced by Haneke, especially “Funny Games,” albeit Mylod’s direction feels a tad too slick, and the drama not as deeply ingrained in realism.
I’ll probably add “The Menu” to my list of 2022’s cinematic highlights. Back in October, I gathered up around 35 films.
EARLIER: I apologize for not covering Mark Mylod’s “The Menu.” It finished second at the box-office this weekend with a solid $11 million opening.
I missed it at TIFF, where it had its world premiere, and then had a scheduling conflict this past week, which is sadly when the press screening occurred. I’ll be catching up with it at a matinee showing tomorrow afternoon.
“The Menu” has a 71 on Metacritic and 90% on Rotten Tomatoes. Audiences seem to love it as well, its user ratings on IMDB, RT and Letterboxd are all uniformly good. This one seems to have slipped under the radar.
Mylod is the director behind many episodes of “Succession,” the best show currently on television, nothing comes close to the barbed wit and brilliant setups of that series. Anya Taylor-Joy, an excellent actress, starts in the “The Menu” alongside Ralph Fiennes and Nicholas Hoult.
Did any of our readers catch up with Mylod’s film this weekend?