THE MENU (2022) is part of the 2020s wave of “rich assholes go to an island and something fucked up happens there” movies (see also: GLASS ONION, BLINK TWICE, TRIANGLE OF SADNESS [though they end up on the island by accident there]). Juror #2 Nicholas “Nux” Hoult plays Tyler Ledford, a food-nerd who proudly paid $1250 a plate to bring his less-interested date Margot, played by Furiosa #2 Anya Taylor-Joy, to a private island where celebrity chef Julian Slowik (Ralph Fiennes, THE AVENGERS) presents extravagant themed meals for exclusive clientele. Right away you know Tyler sucks because he calls Margot “babe” and lectures her about her palate, and that Margot is the final girl because she’s the only one looking back to see the boat leaving and the doors closing behind them. We side with her anyway because when Tyler raves about the lemon caviar and raw oyster with mignonette and mansplains that alginate is made of algae she says, “Yeah. Pond scum.”

Most of the others are caricatures of types of people who might be full of themselves: snooty food critic Lillian Bloom (Janet McTeer, TIDELAND), famous star of cheesy comedies George Diaz (John Leguizamo, LAND OF THE DEAD), a perverted guy who just has money for whatever reason (Reed Bierney, CRIMEWAVE) and his long suffering wife (Judith Light, arguably the boss on Who’s the Boss?), etc. As Julian and his staff bring out a series of conceptual courses that Margot insists are making fun of them, the guests mostly laugh along and congratulate themselves on appreciating it. I guess they’re a little split on the one where he talks about bread being around for 12,000 years, “especially amongst the poor,” connects it to Jesus and “our daily bread,” says, “It is, and has always been, the food of the common man. But you, my dear guests, are not the common man. And so tonight you get no bread.” They only get a flight of dips. Some are delighted, but the table of finance bros pull a “Do you know who we are?” The entertainingly harsh maître d’ Elsa (Hong Chau, INHERENT VICE) explains that she does know who they are and no, they can’t have any.

She does know who everybody is, as evidenced by the tacos served with (food spoiler) incriminating laser-etched tortillas (spy photos of one guy cheating, financial documents proving fraud, etc.). The exception is Margot. Tyler’s date cancelled on him at the last minute, so he showed up with her, causing a commotion. She sees hushed conversations from across the room, and later Julian confronts her about her identity. There’s also a question of why she seems to know one of the other guests. As Julian’s hostile intentions become undeniable he figures out that Margot too is a service worker and wants her to declare whether she’s “one of them or one of us.”

It’s broad and obvious in its commentary on class and its takedown of foodie culture (or just general know-it-alls with strong judgments but no artistic soul). I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. In a way it’s like a modern take on one of my favorite Vincent Price movies, THEATER OF BLOOD. He plays a Shakespearean actor who tries to murder the members of a critics circle who denied him an award, and we tongue-in-cheek root for him because he’s having so much fun coming up with imaginative ways to murder while performing parts of all the plays, but also we recognize that this guy is totally unreasonable and a total ham who maybe didn’t deserve that award anyway. Julian too entertains us with his vicious attacks on entitled jerks, and with his CECIL B. DEMENTED-level dedication to his idea of artistic purity, but he’s full of shit too. Most of those people might “deserve it” in horror movie terms, but Margot doesn’t, and her (spoiler) critique of his menu gets to him in a way that suggests she has a point, even if she’s just working a psychological angle after learning some of his backstory – the ol’ FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 2 maneuver.

The screenplay is by Seth Reiss & Will Tracy, both writers from The Onion News Network who went on to write for talk shows (Late Night with Seth Myers and Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, respectively). This one was on the 2019 Black List alongside DON’T WORRY DARLING, THE UNBEARABLE WEIGHT OF MASSIVE TALENT, SHUT IN, 8 BIT CHRISTMAS, THEY CLONED TYRONE, BREATHE, THE CABIN AT THE END OF THE WORLD (KNOCK AT THE CABIN), and RESURRECTION.

Director Mark Mylod is a TV veteran who started in the ‘90s and has done many episodes of Entourage, Shameless (both versions), Game of Thrones and Succession. He also did the movie of Ali G (ALI G INDAHOUSE), THE BIG WHITE and WHAT’S YOUR NUMBER?. I would say this looks more like a real movie than TV, but I guess plenty of TV these days looks cinematic. Well, also they hired David Gelb (JIRO DREAMS OF SUSHI) as second unit director to make the shots of food look exactly like his Netflix show Chef’s Table (which Tyler has watched all of, he mentions).

Mylod also has a great d.p. here: Peter Deming, who did EVIL DEAD II, HOLLYWOOD SHUFFLE, HOUSE PARTY, LOST HIGHWAY and MULHOLLAND DRIVE, among others. I should also mention production designer Ethan Tobman (MADAME WEB, Beyonce’s LEMONADE, many Taylor Swift videos) since part of their success is in creating a restaurant that I didn’t get sick of looking at even though we stay there for most of the movie.

CONCLAVE is the 2024 Best Picture nominee that I think has a shot in what I would call a CODA type scenario where even if not many choose it as their favorite they still have it in their top three or four, and it adds up higher than ones that have plenty of #1 votes but rate very low to the people who didn’t like them. It also did win the BAFTA, so maybe I’m underrating its chances. It’s just hard to think of it as a frontrunner, because it’s so thoroughly, “Hey, that was pretty good!” You gotta say it with surprise in your voice.

Before I heard all the raves for it the ads gave me a powerful feeling of “What is this shit?” Wikipedia calls it a “political thriller” and I suppose that’s accurate, because it’s a suspenseful tale of all the politicking between different factions to choose a new pope. But it’s not a thriller in the usual sense, so they had to take a scene where part of the church gets damaged and make it seem like maybe there’s a murderous conspiracy or some shit. No, it’s not some DA VINCI CODE thing, it’s way more down to earth, but also not nearly as boring.

Ralph Fiennes (THE MENU) stars as Cardinal Thomas Lawrence, dean of the College of Cardinals, who has the responsibility of putting together the titular conclave to decide the successor to a pope who has died of a heart attack. There’s a whole process, all the cardinals arrive at the Sistine Chapel (that would be weird to work at the Sistine Chapel), are shuttered off from the outside world and do a series of votes until they can get to a two thirds majority. The leading candidates promise very different futures for the church. Things would really change if they selected the very conservative Nigerian Joshua Adeyemi (Lucian Msamati, Gangs of London) or the asshole from Italy Goffredo Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto, Enzo Ferrari in the 2003 TV movie version). Aldo Bellini (Stanley Tucci, MONKEY SHINES) could continue the liberal legacy of the previous pope, but he’s not sure he even wants to be the fuckin pope. I mean, Franco Nero played him in THE POPE’S EXORCIST. It’s alot to live up to. The Canadian moderate Joseph Tremblay (John Lithgow, RAISING CAIN) might be the best alternative, but then there’s some papal intrigue. (This should be rated PG for papal intrigue.)

You see, the prefect Janusz Woźniak (Jacek Koman, GHOST RIDER: SPIRIT OF VENGEANCE) swears that the night he died the pope demanded Tremblay’s resignation. Tremblay denies it, so there’s a mystery and possible monkey business. Also an archbishop nobody ever heard of named Vincent Benitez (Carlos Diehz) shows up, people are suspicious but Lawrence accepts the explanation that the pope named him a cardinal secretly for his protection because he works in war torn Kabul. Which is pretty badass as far as these cardinals go. There are other questions and possible scandals about other candidates, and triangulation about which candidates split which type of vote.

Lawrence tries to be fair and thoughtful about everything, tries to give wise sermons, but people read into everything he says, including papal intentions. Which would’ve been a more thrillery sounding title. PAPAL INTENTIONS. I wonder if they considered that. Fuck the book title.

I delayed reviewing this for a long time, it’s a challenging one for me. I don’t know if I know how to make this sound entertaining – you might just have to see it. I’m not Catholic or religious but I enjoyed it partly on the level of a process movie. I never thought about how they choose a pope, may never again, but this was interesting. And it’s pretty timely in an era when whatever nice religious people who might be left in the world really need to put their fellows on a fuckin leash, those motherfuckers are terrorizing everybody in ways that sure don’t seem to comport with their alleged spirituality. Just the worst bastards in the world using religion, and sometimes specifically Catholicism, to excuse their sicko fascist behavior. (J.D. Vance, etc.) In this depiction there are Catholic leaders fighting for interpretations of the religion where you’re actually supposed to do good things in the world, not be a bastard, etc. And it gets into pretty progressive territory I did not expect.

The script is by Peter Straughan (THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS, TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY), based on the book by Robert Harris. It’s fair to say it’s a dialogue-forward movie, but it’s pretty cinematic, and for that I credit director Edward Berger. I was actually surprised to see so much raving about CONCLAVE in my social media feeds because it seemed to me like the same people were extremely negative about Berger’s last movie ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT. I haven’t seen anyone really address that it’s the same director. I really thought that one was brilliant, though, and I see a relation here.

I like how Berger pays special attention to procedure and ritual and interesting visual details: the tying of a ribbon around the door of the dead pope’s room and sealing with a wax seal, threading a needle through ballots, a pile of phones removed from the building before the sequester, a pile of cigarette butts on the ground in the courtyard. Also little things like the glasses on the bedstand next to the late pontiff, or the many rubber bands in his drawer, or the way the little signs of modernity (scrolling a smart phone, using a Nespresso machine, vaping) humanize the participants involved in this very old ritual.

I haven’t mentioned Isabella Rossellini (DEATH BECOMES HER), who was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for playing Sister Agnes, but she’s one of my favorite parts of the movie because her presence and small gestures say so much about the backwards traditions of, you know, certain institutions, and the potential for progress. As the men all prepare for their important duty we see a much larger group of nuns painstakingly preparing ravioli and other foods for them to eat. As with the brilliant anti-war opening of ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT, Berger makes points that could be heavy-handed if done with dialogue, but they’re done entirely visually, so they go down perfectly. Later, as Lawrence makes an enlightened speech about the importance of diversity we cut to Sister Agnes hearing it muffled from outside, where the women have to be. It turns out to be thematically important, but it wouldn’t have to be.

Fiennes was nominated for Best Actor, and it’s a pretty great role for him, all kinds of meat to chew on politely. It’s the opportunity to not go big and still be a show off that makes it impressive. It worked out well to pair it with his role in THE MENU, since both basically have him as a collared religious leader convening a group of elites, sequestered from society, to go through a series of prescribed activities, making meaningful speeches in between, trying to guide them in a certain direction. In both cases he’s trying to follow an agenda but having to reconfigure, look into backgrounds, deliberate, make decisions. And when it’s over you’ll know something happened when you see smoke. They’re basically the same except in one of them (SPOILER) he makes himself into a human s’more. I wouldn’t say I loved either of them, but I enjoyed them.