Alternate Best Actor 2022: Ralph Fiennes in The Menu

Ralph Fiennes did not receive an Oscar nomination for portraying Chef Julian Slowik in The Menu. 

The Menu is a proper social satire remembering to actually entertain rather than just being a dogmatic screed. 

Ralph Fiennes feels easy to take granted in this role, because playing a psychopathic chef who is set to punish his wealthy guests on a remote island, seems like a role he would ace...and he does. That in itself shouldn't make it any less of an achievement, however, because yes Fiennes is a great actor, and he is great here as well. I think why he's great though speaks to his performance here which may in fact be apt to a great meal, perhaps something you'd expected in that it tastes delicious but surprising in being something new. Fiennes is expected in his powerful domineering presence as the imperious chef. The man is treated with reverence by all as we enter the island and he is granted almost a mystical quality. Fiennes's imperious presence is fully on display with Slowik's first entrance onto the scene, and the very image of him exudes a man of power, although in this instance a man of culinary power. The meat of the work is hard to ignore on its own, however, it is the spices that make it come together, the little instances of something else that make Fiennes's work here so remarkable. Take the introduction of his restaurant, Hawthorne's to the guests, it's a little thing, but a little thing that is so special as his loyal kitchen crew repeatedly announces "YES CHEF". In this moment, the little cock of Fiennes's head to the side, and the smile that comes with it. Fiennes on the immediate surface exudes that power, maybe just the power of performance initially as Slowik's own performance as he is about to introduce the first course with the grand regalness of the world's greatest chef. Fiennes's little tilt and smile though is already there's an indication of something off, small though notable as not only is sinister but there's a glint of mania that becomes all the more obvious when re-watching the film. 

The Menu introductions that set up every dish by Slowik begin unassumingly, though expectedly pointedly by Fiennes's cold yet fierce delivery of the initial request that the guests "do not eat" but rather savor the menu for all that it is worth. That initial command, though delivered with that unquestionable authority isn't immediately concerning. Just as Fiennes projects Slowik as intimidating but intimidating as a man who brings such ferocity to his art, though so it would seem. He delivers that overpowering charisma among his crew, his movements have the manner perhaps of a great chef but more accurately that of a cult leader. Every introduction though is a great bit of performance from Fiennes in itself as the further he goes the more it becomes evident that he probably has something in mind. The first instance is his denial of the guests' actual bread course, with the reason that the bread is intended only for the poor, Fiennes is able to so effortlessly emphasize the words this time around with a bit more than a pinch of venom and the whole meal begins to take upon it a certain nefarious quality. What's great though is Fiennes even in this quietly revealing sinister quality is still captivating as a storyteller and delivers every word as still this great chef even as it becomes clear more is going on. His delivery of the next speech, as he serves the guests tacos, is where we see even more in Fiennes's work as he recounts the meal as his boyhood days when he stabbed his father while he was choking his mother. Fiennes, again perhaps expectedly, is incredible as he holds the refinement in his delivery yet the painful nature of the story is evident in the trauma just beneath and subtly present in his eyes. 

The next Menu item is the turn and in a certain sense that is when Fiennes begins to start cooking with gas with his performance, but before then one must examine his relationship with the escort Margot (Anya Taylor-Joy) who only came to the restaurant for her job while everyone else was carefully chosen by Slowik. She actually questions the meal as frequently not particularly appetizing. And Fiennes's initial reactions towards her are rather fascinating because you see in his expression some sense of trying to dissect and this quiet frustration in his manner just specifically towards her. He speaks to her initially as emphatically as possible stating the quality of the menu and that she must eat. Fiennes presents these moments as a kind of fixation on her as this unease as she questions the perfection of what he has foreseen with this final menu of his. To the point we see him seek comfort in his drunkard mother for just a moment, that is such a weird moment that Fiennes manages to make natural within the state of Slowik as he rests his head against her for some kind of comfort. Back to the menu though where Fiennes introduces the next item by having its sous chef commit suicide in front of the crowd. Again Fiennes is outstanding just in the sheer will behind his voice as notes the man being good as a chef but not great, with even this dismissal feeling like a most brutal cut due to Fiennes's delivery. 

And here where it becomes open season on the guests as it becomes clear that Slowik is playing with them as he is planning a grand finale murder-suicide with the guests and his staff are all to die before the end of the night. And it is where Fiennes of course was going to be great as the cult-like megalomaniacal chef, that was a given, but there is so much more savor with this performance throughout. A performance that is carefully prepared with the satire in mind, and he never turns Slowik into a simple chilling and domineering villain, even while being wholly great at that task. This is genuinely a hilarious performance by Fiennes, hilarious however in ways that always serve the character and serve the film. Take even the aforementioned taco introduction scene where Fiennes mentions "taco Tuesday", it's funny in part just to hear Fiennes say those words with his incredibly regal voice, but he also in that bit just in that mania that again flashes against his face shows the true nature of what is going on with Slowik at this point. Fiennes though has multiple moments of comic gold, particularly impressive because he never actually lets it shatter the truly overarching menacing qualities of his work. Instead, it is perhaps that infusion of the comedic into the menace that makes him so entertaining. Take the moment where Slowik reveals his reason for wanting to kill a movie star (John Leguizamo) because of the bad movie he made which Slowik wasted a day off on. Fiennes's hilarious by saying it absolutely straight-faced and merciless with just how serious Slowik is with how his time was wasted. Or his questioning of the movie star's assistant on whether or not she has student loans which becomes the deciding factor. Fiennes's extremely sharp and short delivery of this message again is hilarious. The greatest moment in this regard though is taking on Margot's "date" Tyler who brought her along knowing everyone was going to die. Fiennes's way of initially speaking to him with this smile towards him as he pulls him along with the perfect sense of false support for the young man's artistic genius. Then ordering Tyler to cook for him, Fiennes is again so funny by being so perfectly cruel in every cutting remark towards Tyler's efforts. I especially love Fiennes's deadpan remark on Tyler's unorthodox dicing methods they've been "ignorant of". The coup de grace however is his falsely impressed reaction to just how bad Tyler's dish was. We don't need to hear Fiennes's final words to him because the sheer venom in Fiennes's face is more than enough. Although the scene is of one men convincing another man to commit suicide, Fiennes makes it so wonderfully funny with just how on-point every moment of this takedown is. 

Fiennes's performance is still more than just even the hilarious domineering villain. There is a genuine emotional current throughout this performance that we see most often evident in the scenes he shares with Taylor-Joy. The moment in which he takes her back to make her choose a side, though both sides have to die either way, Fiennes reveals in that request just how truly around the bend he is. Of course, that is already evident with what he is doing, but in his moment of insisting that everyone must die, Fiennes brings just a bit more of the insanity wrapped in desperation showing a bit more to just what is going on in the man's head. We see a bit more when he invites Margot into his office to discuss her choice where Fiennes tempers his work down just a bit more to show perhaps Slowik closer to out of his demented state as he reacts to her own unpleasant story of "servicing" a rich person. Fiennes doesn't show this to be wholly empathetic but there is a bit more of a connection he allows at this moment than is typical. In turn, when he sentences her to die with the guests later, his eyes have a sense of betrayal in them and it isn't the same cold stare that he gives everyone else. But we're not done because the final course of the meal, is the best, that being when Margot, based on seeing an old happy photograph of Slowik working a burger joint, asks just for a proper cheeseburger. The full payoff of her not being a perfect aspect of his meal in this request, however not in the way that would be expected. Fiennes gives one of the most masterful line deliveries of 2022 in the little whisp of a voice crack, that alludes to all the emotion that Slowik is holding in as he agrees to her request. The emotion not of hate for once, but a somber joy. Something we see more of as he cooks the hamburger, and Fiennes is genuinely moving in showing such real passion and heartbreak in the moment of the cook. You see someone doing something that truly loves at the moment but he also shows that sad realization that it will be the last time for him. Fiennes's performance in a way earns Margot's fate, because in this moment you see just how much that request truly meant to Slowik. I adore this performance by Ralph Fiennes, because he completely met my expectation for this meal, wholly satisfying was his constant domination of the frame as the killer cult chef, but also subverted so many times with just how much humor and even strangely heart he managed to knead into it.