‘The Menu’ offers compelling, comedic class commentary

BY RYA VALLABHANENI A&C SECTION EDITOR

“The Menu” is a film obsessed with class. From its first to final scenes, the movie covers one of the most exclusive and extravagant dinners ever made with some of America’s wealthiest citizens in attendance. At first, the film appears to largely focus on aesthetics, focusing on the food, the restaurant and the private island where the dinner takes place. But as the movie progresses and more is revealed about the night’s once-in-a-lifetime menu, horror sets in. The chef, as well as the guests, make a series of disturbing decisions, and satire of the darkest kind soon becomes the film’s main goal.

The film follows the outline of a multi-course meal served at Chef Julian Slowik’s (Ralph Fiennes) Michelin-star-worthy restaurant Hawthorn. The film’s central protagonist is Margot Mills (Anya Taylor-Joy), a paid escort who has been hired by Tyler (Nicholas Hoult) to attend this lavish meal. Since Hawthorn can only be reached by water, the film begins with Margot and Tyler stepping aboard a boat. But “The Menu” soon expands to chart the stories of the rest of the guests, all of whom have one thing in common: They are some of the most grossly wealthy people America has to offer.

When first stepping into Hawthorn, Margot picks up on an acute class divide. The guests are all entitled, absurdly self-obsessed and either rich or famous. The workers are dressed identically, speaking only when spoken to and all participating in vaguely cult-like behavior. Margot doesn’t quite fit into either category, which is perhaps why she is the first guest to sense when the meal has gone wrong.

About halfway into the dinner, it is revealed that every guest except Margot has been invited for a very specific purpose that night: Slowik plans for them all to die. To him, the guests — people who live lavishly without ever stopping to appreciate life’s genuine moments — represent everything that is wrong with his craft and the food industry. With their constant consumption and failure to ever give back, they have sucked almost all of the passion out of his work. Along with taking the lives of his guests, Slowik intends to kill the restaurant’s entire staff, himself included.

Inevitably, the news of their imminent deaths causes panic among Hawthorn’s guests. Most attempts to escape prove comical and futile as Margot seems to be the only guest who possesses any sort of resourcefulness. Everyone else’s comparable helplessness underscores the vanity of their social positions. Their money — no matter the amount — will not be able to save them.

Despite its gruesome premise, “The Menu” is actually a very funny film. The dialogue is quick and clever, with characters often saying things so disturbing that viewers are left with no choice but to laugh aloud. During dinner, the camera pans successively to each table, featuring one absurd party after the next. There is a movie star dating a woman a quarter of his age, followed by a trio of young business giants who have more money than they know what to do with. One food critic is so pretentious it makes a viewer want to throw her out a window, and then there is Tyler, whose devotion to Slowik is equally cringeworthy.

Part of the reason the film’s writing seems so clever is its delivery. From the chef to the guests (including characters played by Janet McT- eer and Judith Light) to Hawthorn’s unforgettable hostess (Hong Chau), “The Menu” features an absolutely star-studded cast. Everybody is somebody, even if it might take a second to deduce where the viewer knows them from. Fiennes is perfect per usual, and Taylor-Joy delivers a genuinely successful performance.

Chau is able to make her character into one of the funniest of the entire cast, and Hoult, despite his boyish affect, somehow comes across as one of the most disturbed. Though the big voices of an ensemble cast can often crowd each other out, they instead complement each other in “The Menu,” thus working in the film’s favor.

There is no question that “The Menu” is meant to satirize the lives of people from the upper echelon of society. Yet there is no denying how the film feeds into our own fascina - tion with the elite. We may laugh at the utter absurdity of such firstworld problems, but this doesn’t stop us from intently watching how each guest eats, acts and speaks. Even Margot, who is technically working while on her “date,” is able to dress and act the part. The aesthetics of the film additionally help bolster the intrigue of the upper class rather than bring it down. The restaurant is gorgeous, the island pristine and the meal a work of art (even if it may not look like something you’re meant to eat). Scenes gain their beauty precisely because they are focused on such extravagant images. There is, in this sense, an inevitable irony to “The Menu’s” main mission: The film might actually be obsessing over the very people it is trying to condemn.

TODAY’S EVENTS

Exhibit: Reflections | Ancient Objects/Modern Issues

9:00 am - 4:30 pm

Rhode Island Hall

Student Exhibition “The Witching Hour” All day

Granoff Center for Creative Arts

Planetary Lunch Bunch: Town Hall 12:00 pm

Lincoln Field Building

Welcome Back Dinner 4:00 pm

Sharpe Refectory

TOMORROW’S EVENTS

Lunar New Year Dinner 4:00 pm

Andrews Dining Hall

IPP: Solar Stewards InfoSession 5:30 pm

Watson Center for Information Technology

Rare Diseases: Challenges and Opportunities 4:00 pm Sidney Frank Hall

Brown Environmental Leadership Lab - Information Session 7:00-7:30 pm Virtual

Resources offered by the RDC include food and cleaning supplies, preventative health courses, English lessons and assistance with paying bills.

Bah explained that these resources are critical given the diverse nature of the refugee community in Providence. He cited significant refugee populations arriving from five nations in particular: the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Afghanistan, Syria, Haiti and Somalia.

For Amin Faqiry, a refugee from Afghanistan, the idea of leaving his country behind had never crossed his mind.

But while working as a combat interpreter in Afghanistan for the American military, Faqiry witnessed the overthrow of the government by the Taliban, an Islamic fundamentalist group.

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Ultimately, he and his family made the difficult decision to flee Afghanistan. After staying in temporary housing in Qatar, Faqiry, his wife and their five children arrived in Providence in October 2021. Upon arriving at T.F. Green Airport, the family was greeted by Jallow and Bah.

Faqiry, who now owns and operates the Afghan Super Store located on Elm- wood Street, described the support that the RDC offered him when he arrived in Providence. After Faqiry arrived, Jallow made a connection for Faqiry that led to a job at a law firm.

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Bah emphasized that volunteers have been a critical lifeline for the center, especially when it lost most of its funding during the initial outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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To ensure that those in need could still access the center’s resources, the center pivoted to a hybrid model and began offering many of their instructional courses via Zoom.

Rochelle Lee, one of the center’s adult volunteers, emphasized the importance of having college students and younger voices at the RDC.

“Brown students have helped put fundraisers together, done outreach and family services, written grants (and helped) educate other students in the Brown community by putting on forums and informational events,” Lee said.

Ruth Belay ’24, a student worker at the RDC, is one of the center’s English tutors. She learned English as a second language, so she “can understand how language can be a huge barrier.” She “wanted to help out in any way that (she) could.”

Moving forward, Bah hopes to create a refugee clinic to improve access to medical services and reduce the stig- ma associated with refugees accessing mental health care and dental services.

“The clinic will entail a mental health counseling center where people will have clinical counseling for trauma treatment like PTSD,” Bah said. “It will really be phenomenal because wellness is more holistic.”

Lee added that she hopes that the work of the center will create a more informed public perspective about the refugee community.

“It’s important that people see (refugees) as human beings to understand their circumstances,” she said. “Because we try to engineer all kinds of policies without seeing the people that (they) will affect.” has heard “mixed reviews.”

“It’s a good change, especially because of the added squat racks,” Magana said. According to Magana, a lack of enough machines to meet student demand had caused long wait times in past semesters.

“It’s definitely a step in the right direction,” Batisse Manhardt ’26 said. “More equipment means more people can go.”

Rayna Simons ’24 said that the upgrade was needed. “It was usually fairly crowded to the point where sometimes I would say it was, at best, a hindrance to a good workout,” Simons said. She added that some benches were “kind of falling apart.”

According to Magana, having a bigger fitness center would resolve overcrowding in gym facilities. “The gym is a good way to de-stress, and it’s important that Brown prioritizes that and the facilities that are available to students,” she said.

Manhardt said that a solution to overcrowding in the free weight section of the Nelson could be moving the cardio section to a separate area.

“We plan to continuously evaluate the equipment and spaces as time progresses,” Dean wrote. “We have a lot of plans to continue to improve the spaces and programming with Brown Recreation, and we appreciate the support as we continue to grow.”