That much is in the trailer. What is also in the trailer is a kind of deadpan tv comedy style where characters might say something affected before correcting it with a plainer statement ("I'm sure it's all theatre. It's actually real"). That alone kept me from front up for this one but I kept on hearing, among the conflict of responses that this movie has generated, that it held substance beyond the one-liners. So, I punted on it.
In the interests of full disclosure I'll state that I'm not a foodie. I neither care about those who are nor consider them worth ridicule, it's just another enthusiasm. I have been to degustations and have found only that they are wasted on me. Whether I have overindulged or kept away, food and I are generally not a romantic item. So, I approached the initial premise of this as though it were fans of religious relics or the snake-oil addicts of hifi analogue audio: I noted the McGuffin of the experience without caring too much about it. There is a line about the digestive ephemerality of food as art but like the sentiment, once that's gone it's either down to self-reflection or cheap shooting ridicule. I don't care enough for the former and dislike the latter. So, I was at least left with a satirical black comedy.
But there's too much disconnection for that to convince. There are big, violent stunts but the compulsion between action and actor appear so slight (even unto death) that I can only think that if they don't care I surely don't. There is a ricochet off The Decameron whereby an elite group dine and wine and entertain each other while the rest of the world crawls through the black plague. There is a clear statement using the term plague, lest we should let it slip by. But the sins as contemporised from the likes of Dante to me-first capitalism and obsessive consumerism don't really warrant the judgement. And then, when they come up for punishment it is variously trivial or so joltingly extreme that it tears the net of comedy while not quite breaking through to horror.
What is the point of the race and chase? No one is the worse for it nor ever really threatened. A public execution happens to an astonishment that lasts until the next course. I'm not describing comedy from a jaded character response, here, but a failure of the screenplay and direction to follow through. An earlier incident which plays on the hell is as real as a toothache idea is given far more emotional and thematic weight. Of that notion, weight, the supposedly heavy judgement and punishments feel weightless. I would bet a silk pyjama that a performance of a medieval passion play would pack more of a punch, even dismissing the confident assumption that the audience was with the performance on the religious front. For a story of an imposed life and death the lack of a sense of stakes is annoying. Sudden violence doesn't cut it if it doesn't change the tale.
The sense that these characters are simply so detached from the stakes of life for the rest of us that they be driven to extremes over such trivia is just no backed up by anything more than an assumed what-if on the part of the screenplay. The revelation of why the movie star has been included is an attempt at suggesting the danger of the fickleness of the evil genius but the irony it depends on is charmless. Argh! I think I'm just repeating myself now.
Ok, so you have a single sympathetic character (Margot played by Anya Taylor-Joy) in a stew of hateful ones. They are all performing well in a poorly written screenplay under the direction of someone who just keeps trying and trying and just ends up being trying. There are passages of subtlety that I'll admit but wait a few seconds and they'll be shattered by the heavy hand of this local Ozymandias while the lone and level sands stretch far away.
The Menu is still in cinemas but if you subscribe to Disney+ it's now on there.
No comments:
Post a Comment