Hungry for less: cinema’s longstanding mistrust of fine dining

One-percenter satires The Menu and Triangle of Sadness follow a lineage of films expressing unease over haute cuisine The elaborately prepared feast at uber-exclusive restaurant Hawthorne, the setting of the new gourmand-culture thriller The Menu, is so photogenic that snapping pictures has been expressly forbidden; food in general, however, doesn’t come off looking so good. The dishes whipped up by self-serious celebrity chef Julian (Ralph Fiennes) and his militaristic fleet of obedient kitchen staff aspire to profundity rather than settling for the merely appetizing. As foodie douche Tyler (Nicholas Hoult) mansplains to his unimpressed date Margot (Anya Taylor-Joy), the sequencing of courses tells a story, elevating foodstuffs to the level of an artistic medium. She’s mostly just hungry, and so she’s disappointed when each plate bears a couple bites’ worth of what she can only assume is edible material. Continue reading...