Tag Archives: Janet McTeer

Movie Review ~ The Menu

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The Facts:

Synopsis: Young couple Margot and Tyler travel to a remote island to eat at Hawthorne, an exclusive restaurant run by celebrity chef Julian Slowik, who has prepared a lavish molecular gastronomy menu where food is treated as conceptual art, but his approach to cuisine has some shocking surprises for the wealthy guests.
Stars: Anya Taylor-Joy, Nicholas Hoult, Ralph Fiennes, Hong Chau, Janet McTeer, Judith Light, John Leguizamo, Reed Birney, Paul Adelstein
Director: Mark Mylod
Rated: R
Running Length: (9.5/10)
Review:  Good from the first bite. If I were the type of reviewer quoted in film ads, that would be the line I hope they ran attributed to me with the wicked new thriller, The Menu. And that’s the best way to start reviewing what will likely be one of my favorite films I’ve seen in 2022. I’m naturally attracted to movies with a black heart, but screenwriters Seth Reiss and Will Tracy have cooked up something unnaturally dark for a pre-Thanksgiving theatrical dining experience. It might not be to everyone’s palette, but it’s hard to consider anyone walking out of a seating feeling they hadn’t been well-served by all involved.

It starts with the opening credits, inviting you to “experience” The Menu, and then director Mark Mylod drops you right into the pot of chilly water he hasn’t started to warm up yet (but soon will bring to a blistering boil). This is when we meet our dining companions as they journey from an unnamed mainland (the film was shot in Savannah) and make their way to an exclusive restaurant on a private island. The restaurant is Hawthorne, and it’s presided over by mysterious but renowned celebrity chef Julian Slowik (Ralph Fiennes, The Grand Budapest Hotel), who charges $1,250 per person for the evening. 

A brief tour of the island by Elsa (Hong Chau, Downsizing), Julian’s front-of-house manager, shows the guests the food they’ll be eating and the living quarters of the staff working on the island. Everyone works as a cohesive unit in service to Slowik to put out the best food – nothing less will do. This is how he can demand that high price and why an invitation to dine is highly coveted in foodie, celebrity, and influencer circles. Among those dining tonight is a food critic (Janet McTeer, Albert Nobbs), a trio of obnoxious financial upstarts, a blowhard actor (John Leguizamo, Encanto) and his long-suffering assistant), and a stalwart married couple (Reed Birney, Mass, & Judith Light, tick, tick… BOOM!) who appear to be regulars.

An unexpected guest wasn’t on the original list, surprising both Elsa and Julian. Margot (Anya Taylor-Joy, Last Night in Soho) accompanies Tyler (Nicholas Hoult, Warm Bodies), but they are expecting another woman in her place. A break-up left one seat open, and rather than miss out on a dinner he’s looked forward to, the bullish millennial thought he could bring anyone he wanted instead. Margot isn’t just anyone, though. She hasn’t earned her seat like the others attending and doesn’t play into Julian’s overall plan for the night. Because he does have a plan, and as each course arrives, it gives a clearer picture that each patron has been carefully selected as an ingredient to a final dish no one could have predicted.

To say more about The Menu would show how the proverbial sausage is made, and I wouldn’t want to spoil that fun. Mylod and the screenwriters use their 106 minutes wisely, nudging your nerves tighter and tenser each time a new dish is announced with Slowik’s sharp clap to call everyone’s attention. This is a rare meal that gets tastier the more you find out what’s going into the pot, and yet you still can’t quite figure out what the end game is until it arrives. Through it all, there’s bountiful amounts of acerbic humor directed at everything from bad movies to infidelity. 

Each table features its own mini murders row of talent. You can imagine the restaurant serving as the jumping-off place (or ending up?) for an anthology series featuring these actors, and I’d be curious to see what they were doing 24 hours before they hopped on the boat to the island. Taylor-Joy is a rising star for a reason, and she proves it again here by easily sliding into an established leading lady mode. She’s comfortable going eye-to-eye with Fiennes, who should honestly be attempting an Oscar campaign for his work here. Best of all is Chau as your traditionally snobby front-of-house worker but taken to a far more sinister place – each scene she’s in and each line she coolly hisses out is pure gold.

I’ll be making multiple return visits to The Menu; I’m confident of that and can easily recommend it to anyone that likes a little show with their dinner. Please don’t go into it hungry, though, because you’ll wind up competing with a growling stomach by the time the film is half over. There are some gorgeous shots of the dishes Fiennes and his team whip up, and you may be tempted to reach out and try to touch them they are so tasty looking.  Be warned, there’s more to them than meets the eye.

31 Days to Scare ~ Angelica (Trailer)

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Synopsis: A couple living in Victorian London endure an unusual series of psychological and supernatural effects following the birth of their child.

Release Date: November 17, 2017

Thoughts: I’m all for a period set horror show but when a movie is described as David Lynch channeling Henry James, I’m especially down for some Gothic terror. Based on Arthur Phillips 2007 novel of the same name, Angelica was completed several years ago but is just now making its way to a larger audience.  Victorian ghost stories are usually a lot of fun and this trailer hints at what scary things director Mitchell Lichtenstein (Teeth) has up star Jena Malone’s high bodice.  While she’s a far cry from her precocious childhood days, Malone has been making some bold choices in the last few years (see The Neon Demon…or better yet…just take my word for it) so I’m curious to see what she’ll bring to this supernatural tale.  Janet McTeer (Albert Nobbs), Ed Stoppard, and the late great Charles Keating round out the cast.

Movie Review ~ Me Before You

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me_before_you
The Facts:

Synopsis: A girl in a small town forms an unlikely bond with a recently-paralyzed man she’s taking care of.

Stars: Sam Claflin, Emilia Clarke, Charles Dance, Jenna Coleman, Matthew Lewis, Vanessa Kirby, Stephen Peacocke, Brendan Coyle, Janet McTeer

Director: Thea Sharrock

Rated: PG-13

Running Length: 110 minutes

TMMM Score: (4/10)

Review: I’m not averse to shedding a tear or two at a movie if the mood strikes me.  I’ve been known to get all misty for outright tearjerkers (Steel Magnolias, Terms of Endearment) and well up for joy/happiness (Lava, The Way Way Back, Jurassic World…yes…it happened), a little water around the eyes never hurt anyone.  Still, you have to earn my tears and when a movie like Me Before You aims for the tear ducts and winds up conking me upside the head instead, I tend to be less than forgiving.

JoJo Moyes’ two hanky novel has been adapted by the author herself into a two-hour snoozer that features two ostensibly engaging stars that can’t manage to make a connection with themselves or its target audience. Sure, on the way out of the theater I saw people dabbing their teary eyes (using Kleenex that came in a box branded with the movie poster…the one truly clever detail of the experience) but they just as easily could have been wiping away an eye bogey from the nap they just woke from.

Saucer-eyed Emilia Clarke (Terminator Genisys) is Lou, a cheerful working class pixie in town on the outskirts of London. Stuck at home helping to support her family by working odd jobs, she’s just lost employment at a local café when she’s sent by a temp agency to care for a quadriplegic at the stately Traynor house. Well, it’s not so much a house as it is a castle at the center of town.  Something about her spunky attitude convinces Camilla (Janet McTeer, Albert Nobbs) to hire her on the spot and soon enough Lou is face to face with Camilla’s son, Will (Sam Claflin, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2).

Injured in a rainy accident on a London street, Will is confined to a wheelchair without the use of most of his limbs and wouldn’t you know it, he’s not entirely happy about his new situation.  So we have this cheerful but poor girl meeting a handsome but broken prince in a castle and you’d think that the fairy tale sparks would fly and a whimsical romance would develop that cures all the woes before reaching a happy ending, right?  Not so my friends.

Now I can’t deny there’s something oddly watchable about Clarke but what it boils down to is that her performance is comprised mostly of puzzled blinks, nervous gulps, and strained smiles. Lou is a Free Spirit, something the filmmakers never fail to remind us of with each new set of off the wall shoes, zany tights, and granny chic outfits she turns up in. It’s not hard to see why Will finds her ray of sunshine aura a bit much to take at first, I certainly understood his antipathy toward her.  When they inevitably fall in love, it feels false and merely a story development rather than any real feeling that’s been believably developed.

For his part, Claflin is far more successful as the former devil may care party guy that water skied like a madman now in a wheelchair prison from which there is no escape. Claflin takes the role seriously, perhaps a bit too seriously, but ultimately his commitment gives the film its only true authenticity as we watch Will struggle with sickness and setbacks. As he sees his former flame marry his best friend, the pain he hides feels relatable and understandable which makes it all the more unfortunate that he can’t find a way to develop chemistry with his leading lady.

First time director Thea Sharrock comes from the theater world and it shows with much of the film feeling stagey and confined to simply constructed scenes with rarely more than two characters interacting at once. The views of the countryside are gorgeous and I guess it’s a technically well-made picture, but one that’s unfortunately missing an emotional center and a willingness to see things through. Characters are introduced only to disappear for long stretches of time and a late in the run game changer is only danced around instead of confronted head-on.  Here was a chance to say something about life and the power of choice but Sharrock and Moyes are more interested in flying the lovers off to exotic locales as Lou tries to show Will that his current state doesn’t mean he can’t enjoy life to its fullest.

And then we get back to where we started…tears.  By the time it gets to the moments where the tears should fall I felt like the movie made a desperate plea to wring water from a stone after so many ramshackle constructs along the way. I found the final fifteen minutes and especially the epilogue quite irritating, placing a Mr. Smiley sticker over moments that deserved to be more composed and thoughtful.

Moyes has already published a sequel and depending on how well this movie fares in the wake of so many recent and future summer blockbusters, if there is another opportunity to drop in on these characters I hope it can be a more honest visit.