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The Menu review – Ralph Fiennes celeb-chef horror comedy cooks up nasty surprise

Fiennes plays a culinary wizard to the super-rich who’s grown sick of his vain and greedy clientele

Foodie films come in two flavours: joyous life-affirming celebrations of family, community and sharing (Babette’s Feast, Big Night) or horrifying denunciations of consumerism and despair (La Grande Bouffe, The Meaning of Life). This horror comedy about a hyper-exclusive restaurant which must be visited on its own island comes from screenwriters Seth Reiss and Will Tracy and director Mark Mylod, and it is very much in the latter category. Its chapter-heading intertitles are the menu items as the meal progresses and they become increasingly alarming.

The Menu has something in common with that recent much-praised award winner Triangle of Sadness, about plutocrats gorging themselves on a luxury cruise ship; in both, a humble burger is presented in contrast to the culpable fine dining. But The Menu is more controlled and more interesting, with one or two actual laughs – though I have to admit as always to being impatient with the expectation that at some level, and whatever the satirical context, we are supposed to swoon at all these connoisseur gourmand details.

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