How the horror film The Menu connects to Sport of Thrones and Succession

This interview with the director of The Menu was initially revealed at the side of the movie’s theatrical launch. It has been republished to coincide with the movie’s launch on HBO Max and digital platforms.

On the floor, Mark Mylod’s thriller The Menu seems like a cold, high-end horror film. The trailer shapes it because the story of a profitable chef who baits a lure for his wealthy, spoiled patrons, drawing them into an unpredictable life-or-death recreation the place he and his devoted followers outline all the foundations. Bloody mayhem follows. However Mylod sees the movie otherwise — and his interpretation ties immediately into what drew him not simply to this movie, however to his different most high-profile work, as a daily director on the hit TV collection Succession and Sport of Thrones.

For Mylod, the connection between these three tales is the way in which they take care of household — actually on Sport of Thrones and Succession, and extra symbolically in The Menu, the place the antagonist, mysterious, aristocratic Chef Slowik (Ralph Fiennes), has constructed his kitchen workers right into a slavishly devoted workforce that his fanatical apprentice Elsa (Watchmen star Hong Chau) particularly describes as a household.

“If I’ve any throughline in my work — going again to my British work, after I first began directing again within the late 1500s — it’s household,” Mylod joked to Polygon in an interview after The Menu’s premiere on the 2022 Unbelievable Fest in Austin, Texas. “I noticed that energy and household are symbiotic, particularly within the youth. I’m actually fascinated by that. You’re trapped within the area the place you dwell, and you’ll’t escape, actually, till you possibly can go away house. And so there’s infinite potential for dramatic battle.”

Photograph: Searchlight Photos

In Sport of Thrones, bloodlines are successfully future — everybody concerned within the titular quest for energy and dominance is each boosted and restricted by the household they had been born into. In Succession, all the story revolves across the connections and competitors inside a wealthy household. In The Menu, although, there’s extra of a way that Chef Slowik’s patrons — together with characters performed by Anya Taylor-Pleasure, Nicholas Hoult, John Leguizamo, and Aimee Carrero — have been trapped by a household that resembles a cult.

“A part of the attraction of The Menu was that concept that you just put all of the characters on this one field with that quasi-family, and also you lure them on this area, and there’s infinite potential for dramatic confrontation and dramatic conflicts,” Mylod says. “And out of that, you get that pretty relationship between rigidity and comedy, which the writers take a lot benefit of.”

Literal household does come up in The Menu, with Chef Slowik’s mom as one of many patrons at his life-or-death dinner, although their relationship and intentions towards one another are one of many movie’s greatest mysteries.

“We hoped you’ll fill in among the blanks,” Mylod says. “[The question is] at all times How far does one go together with exposition? How far does one go into Chef’s backstory? We walked a tightrope with that. The selection we made was to kick into the intelligence of the viewers. They will fill in these issues for themselves. Audiences are so refined today, we didn’t really feel we would have liked to delve into that an excessive amount of. They might really feel the emotional connection.”

An additional connection between Sport of Thrones, Succession, and The Menu is that each one three tales deal closely with rich folks weaponizing their energy and getting punished for his or her hubris, however all three tales humanize these characters as properly.

“That chess recreation was at all times on the coronary heart of it,” Mylod says. “With Bong [Joon-ho] in Parasite, he by no means meant for the poor folks to be the goodies, and the wealthy folks to be the baddies. That’s trite, and it begins to undermine the authenticity of the emotional story he’s making an attempt to inform. We discovered ourselves in the identical place — we needed to have an emotional connection to those characters. We might see how they do silly issues, however I actually didn’t need them to only be cardboard cutouts, two-dimensional stereotypes. We needed them to have emotional lives, and we needed the viewers to really feel their jeopardy.”

Photograph: Searchlight Photos

For Mylod, the connections between Succession and The Menu are stronger, each thematically and when it comes to how he labored behind the scenes to encourage improvisation and full-immersion forged participation.

“One thing I did carry to The Menu very particularly from Succession was my ongoing lifelong admiration of Robert Altman, and the way in which he works,” Mylod says. “I used to be fortunate sufficient very early in my directing profession to work with two actors, Charles Dance and Michael Gambon, who’d labored on [Altman’s masterpiece] Gosford Park, and I used to be at all times pummeling them with questions on how he labored. He actually was just about the primary director within the West to get two sound mixers and get all people [on a set] miked up.”

Altman was well-known for his naturalistic, overlapping dialogue, captured on the set from folks inspired to remain in character always. Mylod used that approach on Succession and The Menu to present his units what he calls “a Darwinian sense,” the place everyone seems to be appearing on a regular basis, moderately than simply in brief setups the place the digital camera is pointed at them and so they have particular dialogue within the script.

“Everyone was on and everybody was improvising, so all people’s alive and current the entire time,” he says. “I used that on Succession, and I used it on The Menu. It takes a really particular, courageous, clever, intuitive actor to embrace that. We had been very particular in our recruitment to realize that. [With The Menu], the end result was the happiest seven weeks you may presumably have on set, as a result of we had been all locked in collectively in our bubble with COVID at the moment. All of the extras would come on set within the morning, all people’s miked up, and in the event that they occur to be off digital camera, they’re nonetheless supporting, they’re nonetheless improvising, retaining the environment of the restaurant alive.

“That sensible kitchen workers had been there daily, after going by way of this bootcamp about precisely what they need to be doing at any second. They’re doing their choreographed dance, with that precision of Slowik’s world. So we ended up with a very unfastened and free method of working, which is an attention-grabbing counterpoint to the precision of the writing and the rhythm of Slowik’s world.”

Photograph: Searchlight Photos

So far as themes that join Succession and The Menu, Mylod says the “eat the wealthy” thought of highly effective folks being punished is “a part of the enjoyable,” however that he’s extra curious about how each tales deal with warped creativity and the disintegration of characters’ beliefs.

“The perversion of artwork by way of energy, by way of exclusiveness, by way of cash, is actually one thing I’m personally curious about. It’s actually what drew me to Succession,” he says. “I labored with [Succession creator] Jesse [Armstrong] on that. With The Menu, I believe the theme of the pure magnificence of making good meals for an additional human being, the pure elemental act of sharing and sustaining and nourishing one other — it’s so lovely. You possibly can’t get extra elementary than that, besides maybe in childbirth. And for that to have been perverted by business, by cash — that feels to me like there’s a tragic component [for Chef Slowik]. That perversion of an excellent, I believe, is actually attention-grabbing.”

In the long run, that sense of tragedy in a personality is a part of what defines Mylod’s favourite characters in all three of those tales. Whereas he hesitates to show his fandom for one character over one other in these three ensemble initiatives — “That’s like asking me my favourite little one,” he says — he admits that he’s drawn to villainous characters who see themselves as heroes.

For Sport of Thrones, that meant being pulled towards Cersei Lannister. “[Actor] Lena [Headey] was so the other of that character,” Mylod says. “She’s so unfastened and wonderful and enjoyable, after which she simply completely morphs into this completely different human on digital camera. It’s simply extraordinary to see the transition. It seems so easy.

“And [Cersei is a favorite] as a result of I keep in mind speaking to Lena about her method of trying on the character — she simply made a remark in the future about ‘I’m simply making an attempt to guard my youngsters right here.’ Like Cersei wasn’t an evil individual, she was only a lady making an attempt to guard her youngsters. Checked out simply from that viewpoint, it was a revelation to me. I used to be type of romanced by how exquisitely dangerous she is, and on the identical time, she’s simply making an attempt to guard her children. In order that was lovely to me.”

For Succession, Mylod is drawn to Roy household hanger-on Tom Wambsgans (performed by Matthew Macfadyen), additionally due to the space between actor and character. “Identical argument, actually,” Mylod says. “There isn’t a finest character, however when it comes to who modifications probably the most from themselves into the character, it’d be Matthew, as a result of he’s such a stunning, quietly spoken, light character, after which he morphs into Tom, this monster.

“And he simply brings an emotional dimension to the character that breaks my coronary heart typically, as a result of he’s only a Midwest child making an attempt to make it massive, following his dream. So in case you take a look at him and say possibly he’s a baddie, he simply thought he was doing an excellent job. No one thinks he’s a baddie.”

The identical holds true for Mylod’s favourite character in The Menu: inevitably, its tormented villain, Chef Slowik, who additionally doesn’t see his seize and torture of his patrons as evil. As a substitute, he sees them as having captured and tortured him, resulting in every thing that occurs within the film. “That’s why I really like him,” Mylod says. “He’s the important, quiet tragedy behind what’s hopefully a very enjoyable experience of a film. Slowik is in ache. He’s simply making an attempt to cease the ache.”

The Menu is now streaming on HBO Max and is offered for rental on digital platforms like Amazon and Vudu.