The Menu

What happens when an eccentric chef decides to put an end to his sad, excruciating life of having to please not only the palate, but the small mind of V.I.P. customers who don't understand him?

I must confess that nothing could have emotionally prepared me for The Menu.

The call interested me immensely - a very select group of guests board an yacht for a remote island, where they will savor a spectacular, unparalleled banquet conceptualized and organized by the renowned chef Julian Slowik (Ralph Fiennes), who leads a committed team of experts dedicated to the laborious task of cooking and serving the most refined recipes and dishes with ingredients and materials cultivated on Hawthorne island. The organic, self-sustaining approach is very appealing, indeed.

But the menu takes an unexpected turn. Chef Julian lives an existential crisis and what a crisis.

For his very last supper he invites people who (according to his dark judgment) deserve or even desire to be punished and trap them in an ingenious psychological gastronomic thriller which culminates in a macabre,almost mystical epiphany.

In reality,chef Julian has built around him a cult of personality, in the manner of despots, dictators and some religious leaders. His entourage dares not to question, but blindly obeys, deluded by a false sense of participation and co-creation.

What happens in this Babette's feast is an unpredictable show of fright and horror that peremptorily advises us to cook our own shit home, which means, to review the traumas and patterns that have imprisoned us, so we do not become hostages of apotheotic saviours or victims of ourselves.