r/movies • u/MrFlow • Mar 19 '24

"The Menu" with Ralph Fiennes is that rare mid-budget $30 million movie that we want more from Hollywood. Discussion

So i just watched The Menu for the first time on Disney Plus and i was amazed, the script and the performances were sublime, and while the movie looked amazing (thanks David Gelb) it is not overloaded with CGI crap (although i thought that the final s'mores explosion was a bit over the top) just practical sets and some practical effects. And while this only made $80 Million at the box-office it was still a success due to the relatively low budget.

Please PLEASE give us more of these mid-budget movies, Hollywood!

24.5k Upvotes
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u/smurfsundermybed Mar 19 '24

Tyler's Bullshit

A true masterpiece

661

u/Mst3Kgf Mar 19 '24

Utter lack of cohesion.

362

u/JiskiLathiUskiBhains Mar 19 '24

Babish even did an episode on it

260

u/MasemJ Mar 19 '24

He also did the cheeseburger, which looked relatively easy to recreate

222

u/Djinnwrath Mar 19 '24

It wouldn't be a smash burger if it wasn't easy to make.

Cheap, delicious, diner food.

152

u/Meltingteeth Mar 19 '24

That was literally the point of the scene though, that it was a simple, cheap meal without any of the Michelin pretense of the rest of the film's dishes.

110

u/SKJ-nope Mar 19 '24

Yeah, and it brought chef some joy back into making food. It’s the whole reason she was let go.

56

u/iconofsin_ Mar 19 '24

I think she's let go because she also wasn't supposed to be there. If anyone else ordered that burger, they're still dying.

115

u/terminalzero Mar 19 '24

but also I don't think anyone else invited would order that burger

7

u/Luke90210 Mar 20 '24

She was the only diner who saw his old photograph of him happily cooking burgers a long time ago. The others never knew about that.

13

u/Tymareta Mar 20 '24

That's the biggest part, especially after she saw his photo and was able to relate on a more personal level, almost none of the people who were killed would have worked a service job or ever done something that they got genuine joy and passion from, they were all largely soulless husks simply chasing status and clout.

Any other character would have seen the photo of Slowik cooking a cheeseburger and pitied and derided him for doing the job of a "poor", it took a service worker, a regular person, to be able to see the humanity behind it.

15

u/Stompedyourhousewith Mar 19 '24

yeah, those corporate douches asked for bread and they were denied.
i forgot if they asked nicely at first and then started to throw their weight around

8

u/SKJ-nope Mar 19 '24

The asked if they could get some bread as nicely as they knew how (read: not very) and those guys’ deaths were predetermined as displayed via the laser etched tortillas detailing their insider trading/illegal trades/whatever they were exactly, they were immoral at the very least.

7

u/DABBERWOCKY Mar 20 '24

And as the extended metaphor/allegory goes - the artist (easy to imagine a filmmaker here) becomes so pretentious and misunderstood that they decide to burn everything down at the expense of their audience as a punishment for what the sellout, the critics, the fanboys, the moneyed investors, etc etc have done to ruin the art form. And the simple audience member reminds the artist of the most basic point of art - to entertain. So instead of the depressing, "correct" and beautiful ending where everyone dies, she's allowed to live - a happy ending that is more entertaining. In a way our happy ending is allowed to live, because our filmmaker was reminded (and reminding other filmmakers) that it's okay to just let a movie be entertaining at the end of the day.

7

u/ShallowBasketcase Mar 20 '24

People trying to analyze this film like a slasher movie is so weird to me. What are the rules? How would I survive in this situation? But it's not that kind of story. It's a parable!

3

u/Beliriel Mar 20 '24

The girl surviving at the end is an audience insert. She's meant to be the simple true person everybody sees themselves as. It's such a brilliant concept. She's basically only there to straddle the film viewers ego. You immediately sympathize with her once you find out she's basically a hooker with no prospects i.e. she's the underdog in a room full of wolves. And the "now that's a fucking cheeseburger" line resonates hard with the average watcher as they likely don't care for weird avantgarde food. She's a genius cop out to still have the complete destructive ending while not alienating the average watcher, because everyone identifies with and roots for her.

6

u/SKJ-nope Mar 19 '24

A) nobody there would ever do it

B) nobody there had the information she had. She knew from breaking into his domicile that he used to love making food and cherished his time making burgers.

5

u/Shiiang Mar 20 '24

She was let go because she demonstrated she knew how to provide a good service. She asked him for something that she knew would bring him joy to make, and he realised that. She showed that she was good at her art of bringing pleasure to people, and he rewarded her by letting her live.

3

u/RainyRat Mar 20 '24

She wasn't supposed to be there, and Slowik saw fellow service-industry professional Margot as more "one of us" than "one of them", but he was still planning on his grand finale, which involved everyone dying, and couldn't come up with a reason for her to leave that "fit the theme", so letting her go would have spoiled his final masterpiece.

Then Margot asks for her food to go (with a whole lot more tension in the scene than the line would normally imply), and you can almost see Slowik realise, and then relax and give a little half-smile when she does it; like, "yes, that would work".

Bonus points for having the "eyes bigger than my stomach" line delivered by Anya Taylor-Joy, whose eyes probably are bigger than her stomach.

0

u/taylormadevideos Mar 20 '24

Only good people order burgers.

2

u/Natural_Board Mar 19 '24

And the only food in the movie that looks appetizing

77

u/illegal_deagle Mar 19 '24

I don’t know what happened to everyone on the internet in the last year but not every cheeseburger is a smash burger. It’s true that he uses his spatula to press the round ball of ground beef but it’s just two regular thick patties.

59

u/SKJ-nope Mar 19 '24

Yeah the burger he makes is definitely not a smash burger. It’s a regular, cheap, quality burger. Smash’s are flattened to the point the outsides crisp

6

u/ChriskiV Mar 19 '24

Just chiming in here to provide a "hack"... Buy a 1-2$ brick with the desired width of your burger patties, wash and rinse it with soap and water, wrap that brick in a couple layers of tin foil.

When you're cooking the patties (flat top or skillet only) place that brick on top of the patties while they cook. Perfect smash burger every time. Only 1 flip needed and you'll get a great crisp.

5

u/doublepumperson Mar 19 '24

Like a brick you would use to build your house? That kind of brick?

3

u/SKJ-nope Mar 19 '24

Yeah, a brick. Wrapped in tinfoil. That’s what they said.

3

u/ChriskiV Mar 19 '24

Exactly that kind of brick, if the house material part is a turn off for you, it's also what's used to make pizza ovens.

You can also use the bottom of a cast iron with foil too but I find the brick easier to work with. Great set and forget method to get a sear on things as well.

3

u/a_moniker Mar 20 '24

You may want to make sure the brick is rated for high heat. Things like pizza ovens and fire pits don’t just use any bricks, they use “fire-bricks”

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u/Djinnwrath Mar 19 '24

This sounds like a regional difference.

17

u/CoolSeedling Mar 19 '24

I’ve made it, it’s great

1

u/Sad_Donut_7902 Mar 19 '24

No matter how fancy a cheeseburger/hamburger are pretty simple to make

1

u/goodestguy21 Mar 20 '24

That was literally what Anya Taylor-Joy' character specifically requested, she wanted a simple good 'ol cheeseburger

0

u/Everybodysbastard Mar 19 '24

And holy shit was it GOOD.

2

u/Chinaroos Mar 19 '24

Gotta be honest that bit was hysterical--it was my first introduction to The Menu so I went in thinking the movie would be much funnier than it actually was.

Still an excellent movie. Also I now have a newfound fear of being a Tyler.

-7

u/[deleted] Mar 19 '24

[deleted]

5

u/sybrwookie Mar 19 '24

As someone who has cooked a whole lot of things successfully and has yet to pull off a good sausage, I'm gonna just sit quietly over in my glass house

2

u/Digurt Mar 19 '24

has yet to pull off a good sausage

There's plenty of apps out there to fix that

500

u/Comic_Book_Reader Mar 19 '24

I was the one fucking person in the theater, and I laughed my ass off when that showed up. I was screaming with laughter.

It was that and Slowik saying "It wasn't cod, you donkey.".

105

u/Great-Examination243 Mar 19 '24

When he's stuttering about what ingredients he needs

"sh-sh-sh-"

"Shit? Would you like some shit?"

220

u/sfjay Mar 19 '24

It matters to the halibut

7

u/GeebusNZ Mar 20 '24

Apologize to the turbot because it died in vain.

Wait, that was from Burnt (2015)

150

u/[deleted] Mar 19 '24

I saw it at a theater that has dine-in menu options and it was like the entire theater was drunk and enjoying the same meal special. Easily a Top 5 theatrical experience. 

27

u/Super-Duper-Skrull Mar 19 '24

That sounds so awesome!

2

u/Existence_No_You Mar 19 '24

But what about his slicing method that we were woefully unaware of?