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The 2022 Toronto International Film Festival is in full speed, having kick-started Thursday, September 8 with the world premiere of the emotional drama The Swimmers. Since, the festival has been the home for screenings of big-name movies like the Viola Davis-led The Woman King, the highly-anticipated sequel to Knives Out, Steven Spielberg's The Fabelmans, and more.
Below are short reviews for Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, written and directed by Rian Johnson, and The Menu, a dark comedy-horror from Searchlight Pictures that takes place at an exclusive dining experience. Full reviews will be released later down the line, closer to the movies' distribution dates.
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
Rian Johnson is back with a star-studded, suspense-packed sequel to his box office hit Knives Out. In Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, Detective Benoit Blanc returns to investigate a friend gathering on a private island in Greece. In the truest whodunit fashion, the group is offbeat and dysfunctional from the get-go, and it's obvious that there are some poorly-hidden tensions among them before the murder even happens. Johnson's sharp script keeps its viewers on their toes as things begin to go awry and the investigation reaches full steam.
The pros and cons are quite simple: The murder mystery is filled to the brim with celebrity appearances and seemingly nonsensical plot points. Johnson is dominating the revival of whodunit movies with his fearless wit and dedication to making a fun movie, but given the carefulness of Knives Out, Glass Onion feels like a bit of a letdown. He took the aspects that made Knives Out unique and ramped them up by a hundred. In Knives Out, the characters felt so natural, they were rich and oblivious, but not gaudily so. They were unpleasant and self-obsessed, yet held together with their awareness of the social atmosphere around them. These standards are thrown out the window in the successor which is packed with hyper cliché characters that represent the worst of the last few years. Johnson's script equips Kate Hudson, who plays fallen actress-model Birdie Jay, with multiple racist jokes, aimed at the Jewish and Black communities, among others, Dave Bautista plays meninist streamer Duke Cody, and the list goes on.
While on the topic of the cast, the great Daniel Craig effortlessly wows as the Southern detective, Janelle Monae is a scene stealer, and Edward Norton is fist-clenchingly obnoxious as the successful start-up-bro-slash-hippie Miles Bron. Hudson, Kathryn Hahn, and Leslie Odom Jr. are underutilized in their roles, with Odom Jr. taking his lack of depth in stride, showing that he's a Hollywood star in the making. In sum, the movie lacks the cold-yet-coziness of Knives Out while being so intense that the audience is driven into a collective silence—even if they're thinking, "oh, this is so dumb."
Rating: 3/5
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery will have a limited theatrical release November 2022, ahead of its streaming release December 23, 2022 on Netflix.
The Menu
Told over five, maybe six, courses, The Menu is a feast that will leave its viewers stuffed. Directed by Mark Mylod (Succession, Game of Thrones, Shameless) with a script from newcomer Seth Reiss and Succession writer Will Tracy, the movie blurs the line between black comedy and horror in its disruptive and uncomfortable tale about greed and overconsumption.
Anya Taylor-Joy plays Margot, an outlier from the group of food critics, foodies, and rich people traveling to experience world-famous Chef Slowik's (Ralph Fiennes) "The Menu" fine dining experience. The oddball group travels to a remote island via a small boat and is given a tour by the chef's right-hand man Elsa (Hong Chau). As she escorts them around the island, which includes an off-limits smokehouse and housing for the resident chefs, the "creep factor" rises. Immediately, something is off. The atmosphere is very cult-like. The employees call each other "family" (not in a cute, misguided way, but in a Charles Manson way) and the head chef's house is privately stowed away.
The movie is a stunning critique of modern food culture, dishing blows at the "fakes," the take-down critics, and the conceptual artists, while also offering "Great British Bake Off" breakdowns of the dishes being served and mind-numbing suspense. It's a true ensemble cast with each actor delivering an acceptable performance, however, Chau was a standout as Chef Slowik's confidant who is willing to do anything to assist in his search for vengeance. The Menu screams "eat the rich" in its utterly terrifying and "never before seen" horror, but managed to do so subtly, without venturing too far into lecture mode.
Rating: 3.5/5
The Menu will be released in theaters November 18, 2022.