Review of The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989) by Matheus C — 28 Oct 2011

Peter Greenaway's The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover is a strange grotesque love story. It's a story about the restaurant owner, Albert Spica (Michael Gambon) who is regularly dinning in his restaurant every day, along with his wife Georgina (Helen Mirren) and many other of his friends and servants who laughs of every dry jokes he had to come up with. It's him who stands for basically all the talking, and he's so terrible, unpleasant and egocentric. (So egocentric that I wonder how it was possible that he was cast as Dombledore 15 years later) But one day Georgina take a look at one of the other guest, a man named Michael (Alan Howard) whom follow her to the bathroom where they starts a passioned love affair. But how will her grotesque husband react when he finds out. And judging of his character, it's some thing you don't want to know.

The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover is a very odd film, it feels like a Broadway Play, in the sense that it's dark outside all the time. And the colors is like going into a butcher shop, and a lot of intestines-like dishes is shown, but the best dish is in the end. A film with a lot of word games. But the human character is real in sense of emotions and anger. I specially was horrified by Michael Gambon, what a great performance, truly a character we love to hate. It's a strong thumbs up from me.