One of the finest movies from 2022, ‘The Menu,’ has been one of the most anticipated movies to come home to streaming services. Directed by Mark Mylod (Succession, Ali G Indahouse) and written by Seth Reiss and Will Tarcy, ‘The Menu‘ is the punchy study of class war, peppered with ‘eat the rich’ brutalities.
As Chef Julian Slowik, Ralph Fiennes serves as the judge, jury, and executioner to a hoard of damned souls. Margot Mills (Anya Taylor-Joy) is the odd duck out, and Slowik is intrigued by the stranger’s presence as his plans rapidly change. As often happens with movies, people have been quick to question if anything in the film is either based on or remotely related to something in real life.
Is ‘The Menu’ Based On A Real-Life Event?
While ‘The Menu‘ makes an allegorical reference to the ‘Last Supper,‘ the movie is an exercise in the vastness of imagination. The restaurant Hawthorn, however, comes from lived-in experiences from one of the film’s writers.
The kernel of this idea came from an excursion to a private island. On the eve of her honeymoon, screenwriter Will Tracy was invited to an upscale restaurant in Norway. He took the boat to the island with 12-13 other guests. As he broke bread with other guests on the islands, his mind wandered in the direction of ‘what ifs’ and the ‘worst case scenarios.’
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How A Private Experience Became ‘The Menu’
On returning to the mainland, Wil Tracy got in touch with his writing partner, Seth Reiss. Together, they worked on a draft that would capture the extent of Tracy’s claustrophobia and craft an exquisite recipe for horrors. Soon, they came up with the character and started constructing a story around them, eventually becoming the screenplay for ‘The Menu.’
The production designer Ethan Tobman and his team did a marvelous job creating the film’s atmosphere. According to Tobman, Hawthorn isn’t a real place but a set designed for the movie. The restaurant scenes were shot on Tybee Island, Georgia. Original plans to shoot in Scotland were scrubbed because of the COVID-19 situation.
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