#THE COOK THE THIEF THE WIFE THE LOVER FULL#
It’s a rigorously designed world, full of formal, painterly control that threatens to swallow its characters whole course by course.Ĭompleting this sweeping oppression is Michael Gambon’s Spica, a total Dunning-Kruger of taste. There’s gorgeous displays of food, some of which fall into rot and decay, most of which are destroyed in Spica’s inhuman outbursts of rage. Chaotic classical strings and trumpets give the appearance of formality tinged with sleaze and more base elements - putting on aural airs. Greenaway’s film dollies through elaborate tableaux of sets dominated by primary colors - a blue parking lot, a green kitchen, a red dining hall, a white bathroom - with its characters’ Gauthier and Dior costumes miraculously changing colors to match their surroundings as they pass to and fro. The Cook, the Thief, the Wife, and her Lover isn’t afraid to be a lot. With Richard’s help, Georgina and Michael begin an affair in the restaurant between courses - all under Spica’s nose. Eventually, Georgina finds a culinary and emotional oasis in Michael (Alan Howard), a quiet bookkeeper who proves just as able to endure Spica’s perverse attacks.
But despite her imprisonment, Georgina finds refuge in the delicacies which Spica’s palate cannot stand, all lovingly prepared by La Hollandais’ head chef Richard (Richard Bohringer). Georgina is at once Spica’s trophy wife and public punching bag, subjected to a constant barrage of physical and mental assaults by her vile husband - all of which are encouraged or allowed by his motley crew of associates. Unfurling over several extended scenes demarcated with the daily specials of restaurant La Hollandais, The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, & Her Lover tracks the gradual liberation of Georgina (Helen Mirren), the endlessly tormented wife of loathsome gangster and joint owner Albert Spica (Michael Gambon). That was The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, & Her Lover - a sumptuous blend of style, sustenance, and sensuality. It’s a thing of beauty to be introduced to a director whose mark is so immediately felt - where style and story and emotional impact feel indivisible from frame one.
#THE COOK THE THIEF THE WIFE THE LOVER MOVIE#
Despite everything I’d heard, I don’t think either my wife or I could’ve been prepared for what this movie had in store for us.
With its irresistible-bar-none title, The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, & Her Lover stood out like a beckoning siren - I’d read it was the most accessible of Greenaway’s work, without sparing any of the provocation that my friends had come to love and expect of the writer-director. Like fellow British filmmakers like Mike Leigh or Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, Greenaway felt to me like a director whose reputation and style preceded him before any formal experience with his work, a name spoken with as much revulsion as admiration. I knew when starting this project I needed to break into the work of Peter Greenaway. Film 62 of 115: THE COOK, THE THIEF, HIS WIFE, & HER LOVER (1989)