The Cook, The Thief, His Wife And Her Lover
(1989)
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Master director Greenaway (THE PILLOW BOOK) outdoes himself with this grisly fairy tale. The thief, Albert Spica, (Gambon) is a gangster, repugnant and boorish, who holds court at the same table in his opulent restaurant every night surrounded by his lackeys (Tim Roth and the late Ian Dury included). When his cultured and repressed wife Georgina (Mirren) becomes magnetically attracted to a solitary diner in the restaurant, the two begin a secret affair under the nose of her dangerous husband. With the help of the restaurant's chef, the time the lovers share is kept secret from the vicious Albert...for a while. Despite the breathtaking production design and artful camera work, this violent, disturbing and very darkly comic work is not for everyone. Those with the stomach for it, however, will reap generous rewards. |
Avant-garde director Peter Greenaway's most accessible film to date is a truly elegant, shocking and transfixing experience. A Jacobean drama in contemporary clothing, this savage indictment of greed, power and control in today's wannabe society finds Helen Mirren memorably strutting her stuff in another risky, and risqué, performance, while manic Michael Gambon portrays evil personified. Memorably scored by Michael Nyman, Greenaway's stunning “designer dream” is sick, sexy and rude in about equal provocative proportions and totally unforgettable.
Halliwell's Film Guide
Elegant, stylized, painterly and extremely brutal variation on a Jacobean revenge tragedy, though some have seen it as a political satire on our materialistic times.