Menu interpretation of the film’s ending and analysis

In short, menu (Review) is the story of a chef who has dedicated all his life and all his life to cooking. However, when he reaches maximum prestige and realizes that his only customers are a bunch of ignorant filthy rich, cooking loses its meaning and so does his life. He then decides to kill himself, his staff and his customers with one last menu designed with artistic ambitions and as the ultimate proof of his success/failure. Put like this, the interpretation of the menu may seem thin and we would be trivializing the work of others as well as Hawthorne’s customers. In fact, each dish and each character has a precise function to underline the frustration of an artist in the face of a society that views art as a purely commercial tool.

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Art, Food, Life – Menus Explained

Every aspect of the menu (thought to be both a film and a meal) is meticulously studied and this extreme attention to detail is what might be found in a murderous psychopath who plans his next murder with obsessive attention. Is. Food is a metaphor for life and a metaphor for death. Consumers feed on entire ecosystems made up of plants, fungi and bacteria. They eat life as they eat animals and by extension death. One of the protagonists, Tyler (Nicholas Hoult), sees Cooking as the only form of art, working organically with ingredients taken from the earth and water, is best done through Man, as a living being, can reach the transcendental. Chef Julian Slovik (Ralph Fiennes) sees it that way and begins by sacrificing family, entertainment, and freedom to devote his entire life to the art of cooking.

His room, in which photographs retracing the phases of his career stand out, is minimalist and aseptic: environmental features that, at the cinematographic level, are often and willingly associated with places that are related to psychopaths and murderers. From the first award as employee of the month to a very simple diner where he cooked hamburgers, going through images of what appears to be his wife and daughter, to the opening of Hawthorne, the place where everyone is locked up. The only photo in which he clearly smiles is an old one, in which he is holding a spatula with a piece of meat. The only picture in which he has a more sad and stern look is the one in front of the restaurant. Slovik himself says that he has devoted body and soul to satisfying the tastes of strangers, only to discover too late that the people to whom he offers his services are as yet unsatisfied.

Characters and Components – Menu Explanation

In menu The cooking is a masquerade and the food a metaphor for the general decadence and corruption of the arts, which are increasingly consumed by a greedy capitalist society. Each customer is a symbol of this slow transition, they are rotten food, yet life. From the failed actor who only accepted a role in a terrible movie for the money, to the food critic who started demolishing local restaurants, shutting them down out of sheer self-centeredness. There is a married couple who have eaten there eleven times as their social status allows, but who do not remember a single dish. There are three employees of Mr. Verrick, the wealthy man who finances Hawthorne and asks to make changes to the menu, like a producer who wants to change the final cut of a film. And finally there’s Tyler, along with the mysterious Margot (Anya Taylor-Joy), the unknown of the evening. It seems that what Tyler hates most about the chef is the super food expert who already knew they would all die, who is able to pinpoint precise techniques, secret ingredients and flavor notes in even the most complicated dish. .

He is a helper on duty without qualification and certificate and has no idea about cooking. He is not a cook, he is not an artist, he is not a critic: he is someone who eats and explains what he is eating, who constructs the dish by depriving it of its aura and making it mere food rather than work. Is. He worships the chef, seeks his admiration, idolizes him, and when it is the chef himself who humiliates and ridicules him in front of everyone – and above all, which demonstrates his ineptitude – Tyler commits suicide. As was the case with Slovik, he has been stripped of the joy and happiness of what he cares about most. TeaAll the characters are archetypes, social roles rather than people, ingredients of a recipe. Killing them equals the art’s victory, or at least, so the Maharaj thinks.

Employee of the Month – Menu Explained

as well as the characters, The courses on the menu are pieces of a puzzle and the more you add the more it becomes clear what the final image will be. We begin with the ecosystem described above, man who swallows nature, even if in presenting the dish the cook is inclined to imply nature’s indifference to small and insignificant human beings. The second course is a plate without roti and it is here that the class discussion begins. Bread has always been considered the food of the common people, and after spending nearly a thousand dollars to eat it, the people at the table would definitely not be common people. And so they don’t eat. Slovik begins to play along with his customers and while the critics try to articulate an analysis from an empty plate, Margot begins to have her first doubts. The menu is the ultimate work of art from an author who decides to tell his own story and with the third course we discover Slowik’s tragic childhood. Alcoholic parents, an abusive father, a desire for revenge and resentment harbored over the years and are still present in adulthood (let’s assume such drift was relatively predictable).

The chef has the drive to do what he does and he does it impeccably, planning every single detail in what he defines as an ego-free operation. Already in the third course, however, the contradictions of a broken man become apparent, who seeks redemption or perhaps revenge more than a performance. Arrogance has something to do with it and it is probably the constant devaluation of a person well aware of his talents that has led to this. No matter the message or the artistry, it all comes from frustration, rejection and non-acceptance, the menu is truly a fad. An example of this is Catherine, the waitress who stabs the chef in the leg and who had the brilliant idea to kill everyone. In fact, when critics shower her with praise, no matter how hard she tries to tone down her remarks, Catherine cannot hold back tears at the culmination of a lifetime’s work. All he wanted was recognition.

Dr. King once said… – Menu Explanation

This brings us to the fourth course, The Mess (in Italian Il Massacro). The story of a boy who (also) dedicated his entire life to chasing chefs in an attempt to achieve greatness, sacrificed everything in return and finally managed to join the team, later Realized he was good but not brilliant. The boy learns that he cannot reach his idol and, above all, that his idol actually leads a sad life, devoid of affection and joy. There is only one way left hence death, suicide. Mess is the course that best explains the entire menu. WhyWhen your life has been wiped out by your work and your work has been ruined by your customers, all you have to do is make a mess, in this case the kitchen with blood and bits of gray matter.

However, Slovik doesn’t just want to kill himself, on the contrary he carefully chooses who will die that evening and not because he has no choice but to take revenge. The art he’s staging is a ruse, no one will ever know what he did, or why, everything will look like an accident, so what’s the point? The truth is, no matter how much he tries to elevate his idea, the cook is an angry man, with his father, with his mother, with his customers, and even with himself. There is no real artistic intent, it is a lie that is told and told to others and it also tries to legitimize it by quoting Martin Luther King. Too bad Margot is among that bunch of idiots.

Margot – Menu Explanation

Indeed, on the fourth course, The Menu Project stops working because, of all the people worthy of death and unworthy of sympathy, there is one person with whom the chef can’t help but identify. Margot is an escort because of the experience she provides and is frustrated with clients who treat her like a tool and don’t respect her job. We don’t know much about her but it is clear that unlike Slovik she has been through a lot, but she doesn’t give up, she keeps on fighting and is the only one of them all who tries to save her life. Money seems to be synonymous with stupidity, superficiality, so much so that Eleven doesn’t think of forming a gang and destroying everything to save her life, but unknowingly chooses to be a victim. Margot, on the other hand, is not, and her resistance and estrangement from the group both fascinate and frustrate Cook, who then tries to welcome her into his ranks. However, the girl recognizes his hypocrisy and identifies his weak point.

That damned cheeseburger you ate as a kid, that your parents bought you and even though it sucked, you thought it was the best in the world. What Slovik felt in cooking is the smile he had in that photo while cooking hamburgers as employee of the month. No matter how much he blames the customers, the society or the system, Nobody took away her happiness, she just lost it. Margot shows him this when he orders a simple cheeseburger at the best restaurant on the planet and to make matters worse he asks her to take him home. The simplicity of that gesture gives the chef one last moment of happiness as, after years of cooking without love, he finally rediscovers the passion that led him to give up everything to feel this way. Margot earns her freedom and escapes, while the other customers accept the end, unwittingly aware of their rot.