Toronto International Film Festival 2022: BROS & THE MENU

Major studio productions often use the Toronto International Film Festival as a launching pad for large theatrical releases, and this year is no exception. Both Nicholas Stoller‘s Bros and Mark Mylod’s The Menu have the potential to generate highly successful box office numbers, and both (thankfully) also happen to be well crafted pieces of filmmaking.

Bros (Nicolas Stoller)

Breathing fresh air into the often-overdone romantic comedy genre is no easy feat, but Nicholas Stoller et al. seem to find that sweet spot in the delectably funny Bros. Billy Eichner shines as a comedic lead, and the film has its fair share of laugh out loud moments. This is bound to be a crowd pleaser that is just as heart-warming, as it is funny.

Bobby Lieber (Eichner) is a museum curator and podcaster based in New York, who has seemingly given up on finding any semblance of true romance. Night after night, he swipes on dating apps, but eventually meets Aaron (Luke Macfarlane), a lawyer, at a local club. The two fall in love, and navigate being a gay couple in a modern world. Bros is the first romantic comedy from a major studio with a principal cast entirely from the LGBTQ community.

Known for his comedy game show Billy on the Street, Eichner has been slowly expanding his horizons as a performer over past few years, with Bros being his first starring role in a film. To that end, he holds up the mantle of playing a leading man with ease. Bobby is a character with some overbearing qualities, but Eichner gives a performance that rarely feels exhausting, maintaining a level of likability that is so instrumental for a narrative like this. Macfarlane also elevates his portrayal of a gay lawyer who isn’t nearly as open about his sexuality as others in the film, without ever seeming dismissive of his own identity. The cast, in general, is all comedically inclined but never become caricatures for the purposes of generating a few laughs.

Bros also threads a fine line between rejecting the usual antics of a romantic comedy, while also embracing those same qualities through a more nuanced lens. By openly criticizing societal expectations of a ‘normal’ romance in the narrative itself, there’s a layer of commentary that flows through the story. And by integrating this yearning to reject the norm, while trying to build a romance like any couple trying to find love, the film then creates its own normalization of what a romantic comedy can be. It’s not necessarily ground-breaking cinema by any means, but it’s certainly new and refreshing and feels vitally important.

On the surface, this might still play out as a romantic comedy with a unique twist that’s flavoured with a LGBTQ focus, but it’s actually much more than that. Stoller and Eichner have created something that will likely speak to a broad audience base, and harvests some important commentary in a manner that is both accessibly digestible and highly entertaining.

The Menu (Mark Mylod)

With a tantalizing premise and stellar cast, Mark Mylod’s The Menu is a socially conscious piece of filmmaking that never forgets to have fun. The film is a perfect showcase of talents for both Anya Taylor-Joy and Hong Chau, and a reminder that Ralph Fiennes is one of the few actors on the planet who can be intensely terrifying, yet comedically inclined. This was a romper of an experience that keeps you on your feet, and never ceases to be delightfully entertaining.

When Margot (Taylor-Joy) gets invited to a destination dining experience by her date, Tyler (Nicholas Hoult), she has no idea what to expect from the revered Hawthorne Island. But as each course is presented, it becomes clear from the establishment’s head chef (Fiennes) that the island’s food experience is unlike anything else.

Having previously worked as a director on shows like Succession, Shameless and Game of Thrones, Mylod seems well-armoured in combining scale with comedy, which is exactly what we get in The Menu. The quick-paced dialogue exchanges, penned masterfully by Seth Reiss and Will Tracy (who also worked on Succession), have an energetic bounce to them and helps thread the narrative’s characterizations with its broader social commentary. Each guest at the dinner (which includes the likes of John Leguizamo, Aimee Carrero, Janet McTeer, Rob Yang, Arturo Castro, Mark St. Cyr and Reed Birney) serves a very specific purpose, and are all given just the right amount of screen time to make their presence meaningful. Taylor-Joy is also such a fitting protagonist, particularly as someone who must demonstrate both strength and vulnerability, for which she is so aptly capable of doing. Chau and Fiennes are both scary in their own way, but also unexpectedly funny, adding brevity to the narrative without ever cutting away from its tension.

The film’s tense composure is further complimented by Peter Deming’s crisp cinematography, giving Hawthorne a cautiously inviting ambiance that has hints of both beauty and mystery. The Menu’s sound design is also instrumental in creating notes of tension, which seem to be punctuated by Fiennes’ Pavlovian-like clap throughout the film. It’s an intricately designed film with concise architecture, which allows for a gripping experience contained within a tight conceptual space. As a viewer, you’re essentially forced into a corner of deliberation to examine your own relationship with and appreciation of art.

While packaged as a commercial film with thrilling elements of a dark comedy, much like the dining experience at Hawthorne’s, I would argue that The Menu also allows for a much more elevated experience as a creative art form. It’s playful and thought-provoking in all the right ways, and holds up a mirror to society’s increasingly superficial consumption of art. Mylod has proven himself to be an extremely versatile filmmaker, and The Menu is all the evidence you need.