What You Wish For

 

I haven't seen Nick Stahl (HBO's Carnivale, Sin City) in a lot of motion pictures, and the films he HAS appeared in don't get a lot of love from critics or audiences. That's unfortunate but not entirely surprising as Stahl's acting range is dependable but not Shakespearean. 

Still, when I saw he was starring in Nicholas Tomnay's What You Wish For, I made a note to definitely check it out. Stahl strikes me as an earnest performer who usually gives his best, certainly enough for a late-morning matinee.

In What You Wish For, Stahl plays Ryan, a chef on the run from fed-up bookies because of his gambling debts. He arrives in an unnamed Latin American country where former culinary school classmate Jack (Brian Groh) is stationed briefly at a luxurious villa to prepare a five-star dinner for an international group of patrons who, as we quickly learn, have very particular tastes.

In the course of this intriguing and disturbing film, Ryan assumes Jack's identity and takes on the task of preparing the four-course meal under the direction of the severe Imogene (Tamsin Topolski) and assisted by her aide Maurice (Juan Carlos Messier), both terrific characters, BTW.

It wasn't clear to me how Ryan ended up in this hellish paradise; he may have been invited by Jack or maybe invited himself. In either case, the events leading up to and following Ryan's stepping into the role of chef raise fascinating questions about Tomnay's underlying messaging and the relationship between the super-rich and the under-developed world they find so appetizing. He seems to be asking which of the two poses the larger existential threat to civilization. It was pretty clear to me what Tomnay thinks.

Similar questions about the callous super-rich have been posed by other recent movies -- The Triangle of Sadness (2022) and Poor Things (2023) being two treatments. 

What You Wish For thrums with bitter outrage throughout, even during the tense aftermath of the delectable dinner, which will not be to every audience member's taste -- to say the least.