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psychological
2022 · R · 1h 47m
Painstakingly prepared. Brilliantly executed.
A renown chef, brilliant, tortured. Curated guests. A private island with a unique menu. What could go wrong.
A group of hand-picked guests travel by boat to a private island for an exclusive $1,250-per-head tasting menu at Hawthorn, the restaurant of cult-famous chef Julian Slowik. As each course arrives, it becomes clear the evening was designed with something far beyond gastronomy in mind — and that the guest list was assembled for a reason.
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Based on 3 ratings
6.5
Overall
Wealthy food obsessive Tyler Ledford brings his date Margot Mills to Hawthorn, an ultra-exclusive restaurant on a private island where chef Julian Slowik serves a four-and-a-half-hour tasting menu at $1,250 per person. The other guests are a cross-section of Slowik's grievances: Lillian Bloom, a powerful food critic, and her editor; Richard and Anne, an older couple of bored regulars; three tech-bro finance guys connected to Hawthorn's investor; a fading movie star and his assistant; and Slowik's alcoholic mother, Linda, seated alone at the back. The severe maître d', Elsa, immediately clocks that Margot was not Tyler's original reservation guest — a small disruption in an otherwise perfectly controlled machine.
The early courses are technically dazzling and quietly ominous. Slowik opens each with a loud clap that snaps his kitchen to attention, delivering monologues about nature, purity, and the guests' place in his vision. The mood cracks with the third course: tortillas laser-etched with incriminating information — Lillian's restaurant closures, the tech bros' fraudulent bank records, Richard's escort photos, George's humiliating film work. The guests laugh it off as performance art. The fourth course ends that. Slowik introduces his sous-chef Jeremy, gives a devastatingly calm speech about the man's mediocrity and his guaranteed misery, then watches as Jeremy puts a gun in his mouth and fires. The staff clean the blood with practiced efficiency. Richard tries to leave; staff members hold his hand flat on the table and remove his ring finger with kitchen shears. The island is now a prison.
Slowik drops all pretense and explains why each table was chosen. Lillian built and destroyed restaurants for sport. The tech bros use Hawthorn as a logo to impress clients. Richard and Anne have visited so many times they can't remember what they ordered — Slowik recites an old dish word-for-word to underline it. George starred in a terrible film that forced Slowik to cook themed nonsense as a tie-in. The investor, Doug Verrick, is brought out to the dock and lowered into the ocean until he drowns. The male guests are sent into the woods and hunted down by kitchen staff. Escape is not a possibility. The evening ends in death for everyone in the building, including Slowik and his brigade.
Margot does not fit the menu. She was not Tyler's original date — she is an escort named Erin, hired after Tyler's ex-girlfriend dumped him before the dinner. In a private confrontation, Slowik recognizes that she comes from the service class, not the world of the other guests. He then reveals the worst of it: Tyler knew ahead of time that everyone would die tonight. He worshipped Slowik enough to attend anyway and brought Margot knowing she would be killed alongside him. Invited into the kitchen to prove his credentials, Tyler produces a sloppy, overcooked, conceptually empty plate of lamb — what Slowik names "Tyler's Bullshit." Humiliated, Tyler is led to Slowik's office, where he hangs himself with his tie.
Margot breaks the menu from the inside. She confronts Slowik in front of the remaining guests: she doesn't like his food, she's still hungry, and she accuses him of cooking with obsession rather than love — of failing at the most basic job of feeding someone something they actually enjoy. She orders a cheeseburger. A real one, not deconstructed. Slowik goes quiet. In the kitchen, he grinds the meat, forms the patty, and cooks it on a flat top — the same food he made before the accolades turned cooking into theater. It is simple, honest, and clearly made with care. Margot eats it with visible pleasure, then asks if she can get the rest to go. She offers a ten-dollar bill. Slowik boxes it up and lets her leave. She is the only guest who correctly diagnosed his grief, and the only one who refuses to be part of his ending.
With Margot gone, Slowik addresses the remaining diners for the last time. The final course is a s'more: the staff dress each guest in a marshmallow stole and a chocolate hat, then scatter graham cracker crumbs and flammable syrups across the floors and tables. Some guests thank him. Some weep. Slowik sets the restaurant alight. The flames spread through the carefully arranged fuel, the marshmallow melts, and the building becomes an inferno. The staff stays. Slowik stays. Linda, still drunk, stays. Everyone inside burns.
Out on the water, Margot unwraps the to-go box, takes out the cheeseburger, and eats it while watching the restaurant burn on the horizon. She wipes her mouth with the printed menu — using it as a napkin — and keeps eating as the screen cuts to black.
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