The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover

4/6/19902h 4m

Theatrical Release (US)

~ Lust...Murder...Dessert. Bon Appetit! ~

Overview:

The wife of an abusive criminal finds solace in the arms of a kind regular guest in her husband's restaurant.

Director:

Peter Greenaway

Status:

Released

Language:

English

Buget:

$2,300,000.00

Revenue:

$7,724,701.00

Key words:

sadism
sexuality
allegory
cooking
restaurant
crime boss
satire
surrealism
sociopath
murder
brutality
avant-garde
public humiliation
stray dog
abusive husband
french cuisine
adulterous wife
cannibalism
violence

Cast

Richard Bohringer

~ as ~

Richard Boarst

Michael Gambon

~ as ~

Albert Spica

Helen Mirren

~ as ~

Georgina Spica

Alan Howard

~ as ~

Michael

Tim Roth

~ as ~

Mitchel

Ciarán Hinds

~ as ~

Cory

Liz Smith

~ as ~

Grace

Gary Olsen

~ as ~

Spangler

Ewan Stewart

~ as ~

Harris

Roger Ashton-Griffiths

~ as ~

Turpin

View full cast & crew

Reviews (1)

t
talisencrw
Written 9 year(s) ago
9
Having previously watched Greenaway's 'Prospero's Books', basically from the same era, one definitely gets a sense of the auteur, of great visualizing prowess in the Welsh native. I adore watching Helen Mirren from ANY era, but particularly here, in between the young adulthood beauty she displayed in Michael Powell's 'Age of Consent', through the remarkably absurd and audacious 'Caligula', straight to the sophisticated and very dangerous gorgeousness displayed in 'The Comfort of Strangers'.

It's great to see any dude who's mean to a beautiful woman get their comeuppance (particularly the wealthy--it offers a sort of 'wish fulfillment' for the 99% of us), and the climax here is one of cinema's most articulate presentation of that phenomenon. It definitely made me wish to see the rest of both Greenaway's movies and of Mirren's performances. Well worth the acquired taste necessary for this sort of delicacy.