What You Wish For Review: A Delicious Culinary Thriller [Fantastic Fest 2023]
The monkey's paw delivers in Nicholas Tomnay's "What You Wish For," a culinary chiller with strange and dangerous cravings. It's a Hitchcockian take on one-percenter conspiracies and ravenous appetites that cares more about characters caught hosting a unique dinner party experience. One man's cursed profession is another man's opportunity to start over, as Tomnay keys into how desperation can excuse even the most glaringly not-okay moral dilemmas. "What You Wish For" is a whodunit with sharp teeth and precise knife skills — except you already know who "dun it," and tension exists as the perpetrators try not to get caught.
Nick Stahl stars as hotel chain chef Ryan, who reunites with culinary school roommate Jack (Brian Groh) in the jungles of Latin America before his next assignment. Jack has been traveling the world as a private chef for years, padding his bank account with each high-end, well-paying feast. Ryan has been landlocked in America, churning out roast chickens and amassing a gambling debt now in "broken legs" territory. Jack's life sounds like a dream to Ryan — which he gets to experience. Jack suddenly disappears, allowing Ryan to assume Jack's identity and earnings should he successfully please the arriving dinner guests.
Enter manager-hostess Imogene (Tamsin Topolski shines as a master manipulator who eats stress for breakfast), handler-security-everyman Maurice (Juan Carlos Messier provides the muscle), and the film's enduring mystery. Tomnay doesn't define what Jack describes as a shadowy catering company beyond immediate necessity. We follow Ryan's perspective on everything, as his perceived good fortune turns to bad-then-worse luck. Tomnay wants to keep things as ambiguous as possible to make us feel the stinging uncertainty of his actions, because that ambiguity is what drives our minds far deeper places than the movie might show. "What You Wish For" is keen on proving the sentiment that whatever we can conjure in our imaginations is ten times worse than what some movies can ultimately show, and does so rather well.
Forgive me for dancing around reveals as we get further. Tomnay has created one of those topsy-turvy horror flicks where everything's a spoiler.
Delicious themes with solid execution
Much intrigue in "What You Wish For" centers around how the film deals with its scrumptious themes versus how other more straightforward subgenre representations handle themselves. The way Imogene justifies to Ryan why their professional practices are infinitely less globally harmful than other far more accepted industries is stingingly sinister but also oddly compelling. How Tomnay focuses on the five-star preparation of Pozole soups and sashimi tasters versus the messier butchering of "produce" displays a refined flavor of thrills. Not to say "What You Wish For" is a template for sustainable food sources, but there's an ecological tinge to Tomnay's film that is disturbingly well thought out.
Then you add Detective Ruiz (Randy Vasquez nails the curiosity of a good man in a shady situation), and the ingredients come together. Guests who've shelled out top-dollar for the not-quite-legal dining experience put the rest at risk as they chase excitement, increasing everyone's chances of getting caught for the extra arousal. Randy wrestles with his conscience as he receives the praise he's always desired through means no chef should approve. Tomnay weaves a missing person investigation, exotic meal prep, and Ryan's jaw-dropping predicament into a harmonious feast, increasing the heat until his narrative beat boils over in a rage.
There are some dings here and there, but they're merely a barrier between aptly devious regards and pure excellence. "What You Wish For" could have gone a little harder with more definition around Ryan's backstory and Imogene's employers, but that's Tomnay's choice. Performances are all astoundingly steady, if maybe a tad predictable from the get-go. Tomnay impresses more with execution than imagination, caught in the duality of realizing our fantasies usually come at a price. It's a tale as old as time, except with mouthwatering plating and maybe a severed [redacted].
"What You Wish For" serves sophisticated suspense on a silver platter. Tomnay's follow-up to 2010's "The Perfect Host" feels spiritually aligned, again using food and drink to provoke discomfort. There's a darkness to the movie from square one that never clears, although it's playfully slick as Ryan falls deeper into the dinner party's deranged requests. If you're a sucker for cookery chills that blend extravagance with despicable natures, "What You Wish For" is a tantalizing bite that goes down like a poison apple.
/Film Review: 7.5 out of 10