The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover

The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover is not an easy film to sit through. It doesn't simply make a show of being uncompromising -- it is uncompromised in every single shot from beginning to end. Why is it so extreme? Because it is a film made in rage, and rage cannot be modulated. Read full review

Mr. Greenaway turns this tale of a bullying criminal and his unfaithful wife into something profound and extremely rare: a work so intelligent and powerful that it evokes our best emotions and least civil impulses, so esthetically brilliant that it expands the boundaries of film itself. Read full review

British director Peter Greenaway's The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover, treats the ugliest content imaginable in the most beautiful way possible. Give or take another masterpiece coming down the pike, this intricately assembled, viscerally provocative tract on consumerism gone full and grisly circle, is without a doubt, the most accomplished, astounding film of the year. Read full review

So much for caveats. What's more important is that "The Cook" is a bracingly intelligent and often beautiful work -- a chilling black comedy that tells its heartless story in a virtuoso style marked by visual elegance and dark, ironic wit. Anyone able to stomach its graphic imagery will find it an unsettling but unforgettable movie. [6 Apr 1990, p.E3]

If there's anything disgusting or grotesque that The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover doesn't dabble in, I'm at a loss to figure out what it is. This film, a wildly exuberant, bitingly satirical examination of excess, bad taste, and great acting, is the kind of over-the-top experience that will have timid movie-goers running (not just walking) for the exits. Taboos? If director Peter Greenaway has any, you can't tell by this film. Read full review

Greenaway keeps his wits about him. His vision of human evil is as droll as it is unrelenting. Trained as a painter, he can't help making this particular hell look gorgeous. "The Cook, the Thief, etc." is, paradoxically, a beautiful, drily witty film about monstrous vulgarity and ugliness. [6 Apr 1990, p.22]

Albert is one of the ugliest characters ever brought to the screen. Ignorant, over-bearing and violent, it’s a gloriously rich performance by Gambon. Read full review

Here’s a film that opens with a man being smeared in excrement and closes with an even more horrifying act of revenge, yet it’s fevered, passionate, and occasionally erotic, at least by Greenaway standards. It’s a film awash in the color red, full of blood, sex, and rage, the rare Greenaway that feels alive as more than a formal or semiotic exercise. You may even catch him storytelling here and there. Read full review

From the astonishing studio sets and (Gaultier-designed) costumes to Gambon’s performance (so ferociously wicked that it beggars description), Greenaway attacks his targets with a sadistic obsession that is, frankly, terrifying. Many people will be profoundly offended by this film — by the monstrous misanthropy that Greenaway lays bare through it, by the spiteful images of women in a vicious world — but some may appreciate it for what it certainly is: the most startling depiction of intellectual cruelty and evil for many years. Read full review

Despite its compelling nature, Greenaway’s film is not always an easy one to sit through. Read full review

For everyone? Clearly not. Greenaway is an acquired taste. Once acquired, he's a pure original, not to be forgotten. X marks the spot. [6 Apr 1990, p.G5]

Though borderline nauseating at times, Cook is never a bummer - nor is it quite up to its cinematic prowess. It will be best remembered for its challenge to de facto censorship - also the kind of visual flair that makes even shaggy-dog preciousness seem important. [6 Apr 1990, p.4D]

The overall effect of Grenaway's film is mixed: disturbing, too schematic to be entirely convincing, unforgettable as few movies are. A key element is the powerful acting of a distinguished cast. [23 Apr 1990, p.73]