The movie you have to see is The Menu. With disturbingly delicious ingredients, the film is an entertainment object that mixes horror with social satire.
I really wanted to see this movie. I love stories in which a group of strangers gather in some exotic environment in which solving a mystery is the great entertainment for the viewer. And The Menu is one of those stories.
Three big names stand out on the billboard, Ralph Fiennes, Nicholas Hoult and Anya Taylor-Joy, although only she prompted me to be interested in the film even before I knew what it would be about.
Espléndio Ralh Fiennes, offers a disturbing version of a chef who, in the midst of an existential crisis, decides to end his career with what will be his definitive work of art: Making his place burn, with diners and kitchen equipment included. All this, of course, with the aim of denouncing the crazy and unsatisfactory consumerism of capitalist society.
This is explained by me and I understand that it sounds absurd but in the words of Chef Slowif it sounds insanely poetic.
The Menu, Ending Explained
The film took me directly to Midsommar, but above all to The Island of Doctor Moreau, but being The Menu a film worth seeing and not the almost Dantesque spectacle that was the work starring Val Kilmer and Marlon Brando. Although the tragedy is chewed from the first moment, the almost terrifying, disturbing and claustrophobic atmosphere takes over the viewer, making you not want to leave the crazy restaurant in which everything takes place.
The Menu, Ending ExplainedIn the style of any Agatha Christie story, the characters gradually reveal who they are, what secrets they hide and why they should or should not end up going up in flames. Although here the most enigmatic thing is not knowing what is happening, but when it will happen and why.
Agile, immersive, addictive, disturbing and sometimes disturbing, The Menu is a film whose simplicity and wit is frightening because of how disturbingly entertaining it is. However, it is in the final moment, in dessert, when the tape loses strength.
Perhaps because the endings made in Hollywood that change the “and ate happily” for all ended up dead always leave a bad taste in the mouth, without a hint of hope, or perhaps because at that moment the story deserved a surprising, explosive and unexpected ending. In any case, The Menu is the ideal menu for any movie afternoon.
The Menu, Ending Explained
Although it is Chef Slowif himself who in the presentation of the dessert explains the very meaning of his work and therefore of the film, here is the explained end of The Menu. The film, through chef Slowif, denounces the atrocious and denatured consumerism to which society is subjected, unable to find satisfaction or pleasure in a constant search for perfection that never comes.
No matter what we consume, it is never enough. And the more we want, the less we appreciate what surrounds us, the less we value what we have. Society sacrifices life, effort, blood and life to satisfy each other but no one seems to value anything. It is taken for granted that we deserve to invade the seas and lands to give catch and death to the fish and animals that will briefly satisfy our appetite, without even stopping to appreciate their taste or the sacrifice that has entailed.
Things and society itself lose personality to become a uniform mass in which everyone wants to be like the rest, everyone wants everyone’s approval, everyone wants to be powerful, everyone wants to feel special despite their attempt to be like others, and especially where everyone devours each other. They don’t look at each other’s faces, they don’t care about others, they just ignore each other.
The Menu, Ending Explained
The society that Chef Slowif despises is the one that is prey to materialism, that has forgotten to be happy, to enjoy and to live, the one that no longer does things for love, or for fun, or to help others, but for money. That society that kills everyone’s dreams by taking away the ability to enjoy as children, regardless of whether what we have on our plate is a traditional cheeseburger or a sophisticated dish.