revenge

This review may contain spoilers.

This sat on my watchlist for forever without me knowing anything about it: the plot, the cast, the genre. That served me well. The high concept is the good bit. The score is genuinely unnerving, and the course title cards (breadless bread plate; R.I.P. Jeremy) are funnier than most of the dialogue. Nicholas Hoult is very good as Tyler, whose foodie devotion curdles into something much worse.

But the guests are thin, one sin apiece, dealt with accordingly, and the film never bothers to explain why an entire kitchen would agree to do what it does for its chef’s grievance; “because people worship chefs” is weak. Jeremy is where I stopped extending credit. Margot’s way out—she’s a service worker, therefore exempt—is the same shortcut. Slowik’s complaint is that presentation has swallowed the food; the film proves him right more thoroughly than it means to.

20-odd years since I last saw this and I can only watch it through two modern lenses: roguelikes and LLMs. None of us knows what happened; we’re all just dying and resetting for each new run. And Leonard’s context window is tiny; the Polaroids are his system prompt.

I clicked on this expecting some unfunny Stranger Things parody and instead I got Scott Pilgrim + The Warriors + every Tarantino film. Based on those expectations, it was surprisingly good, even if it’s all been done a thousand times before.