THE COOK, THE THIEF, HIS WIFE & HER LOVER
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1990 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: HBO is hiring established directors to
do segments of its "Tales from the Crypt" series. Peter
Greenaway didn't wait to be asked. He lovingly made a two-
hour horror comic story with some hilarious detail. Somehow
it is being treated as an art film. A unique film that
certainly will not be for all audiences. Rating: +2.
Peter Greenaway's most famous film to this point was THE DRAUGHTSMAN'S CONTRACT. On the surface that was a mystery set at a country estate. Its subtext was that beneath the affected surface of the upper class there is mischief and dirt. The style was, however, very affected and uninvolving and bloodless. To be frank, I could not wait for the film to end. In THE COOK, THE THIEF, HIS WIFE & HER LOVER, Greenaway seems once again to have it in for the upper classes (or at least for the nouveau riche) who dine at a very fine French restaurant (as well as for the people who put up letters on theater marquees). But this time around the cold and uninvolving style is gone. Really gone. The film starts like a Monty Python sketch that goes on a bit too long, then it fades to John Waters, then Herschel Gordon Lewis, and when it is all over we find we have been watching an intricately mounted E.~C.~Comic and a story that could have been taken from the pages of VAULT OF HORROR or TALES FROM THE CRYPT. I laughed my way through the film, was delighted by every ghoulish turn, but I have to say that I cannot recommend this film to most of the people I know. I do not remember when I have seen a film that more people walked out on.
What we have here is one week behind the scenes at The Restaurant From Hell. Actually, the restaurant is "La Hollandais"--soon to be known as "Spica and Boarst's." Richard Boarst is a superb Cordon-Bleu-class French chef whose restaurant was taken over by gangster Albert Spica. Spica does not live by halfway measures. He is extremely violent, exceptionally loud and rude, and supremely vulgar. Night after night he holds forth at his restaurant, piling vulgarity on vulgarity and often savaging his customers. We are led to assume that the cuisine must be very, very good for anyone to be willing to sit in the same restaurant as Spica. The gangster repeatedly brutalizes his wife Georgina, whom he virtually holds prisoner. Georgina, however, is able to sneak away from Spica occasionally to rendezvous with a rather studious, quiet customer, Michael, with whom she makes passionate love.
Greenaway, who wrote as well as directed, has written what could well have been a stage play. There are only a very limited number of sets, and the sets are designed for use of color and for effect rather than for accuracy. First we see the parking lot infested with a veritable army of stray dogs. The kitchen is a hilarious revelation of what goes on behind the scenes at a fancy restaurant. What goes on in the kitchen is unbelievable. The transition from this kitchen that you would not feed a dog from to the ultra-posh dining room stuns the viewer. And so it goes, from one room to the next.
Michael Gambon plays Spica and must speak two-thirds of the lines in the film. He never shuts up and he never says anything you want to hear. Gambon was good in the BBC drama THE SINGING DETECTIVE but his Albert Spica will easily eclipse that role. Helen Mirren is usually good and this is probably a role that will get more attention than her (perhaps better) films such as THE LONG GOOD FRIDAY.
THE COOK, THE THIEF, HIS WIFE & HER LOVER is not really an art film but a ghoulish horror comic book with art film trappings. If you see it, I cannot promise you will like it, but I can promise you that you have not seen any other film like it. I give it a +2 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
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