Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.

At one time, I was naive enough to believe that if both Siskel and Ebert liked a movie, it must be good. This movie showed me how wrong I was.

The main characters of the movie are, of course, The Cook (Richard Bohringer), the owner of a restaurant, the thief (Michael Gambon), a stereotypical gangster, his long-suffering wife (Helen Mirren), and her lover (Alan Howard), a quiet, bookish, decent guy.

The Thief is a volatile, violent individual who takes a liking to the restaurant and sets up shop there (kind of like Tony Soprano at Vesuvio's, but without the style). The Cook is none too happy about his new "partner" but doesn't seem to have any options. The Wife is understandably rather disenchanted with the boorish bully she's married to, and is drawn to the Lover when she sees him at the restaurant. They begin indulging in quick trysts at the restaurant, with the help of the Cook (To get back at her husband? Or because he believes in true love? Who knows.) The Thief eventually finds out about the affair and ends it in his own inimitable way. The Wife finally takes her revenge on the Thief and, hooray, we have a happy ending.

Sounds fairly straightforward, doesn't it? Left to another director, the same plot might have produced a more enjoyable product. But director Peter Greenaway apparently read too much Tennessee Williams during his impressionable years ("Hello! This is symbolism! Did you catch it? Should I do it again, just to make sure? Should I project it onto the stage in case you missed it?") and is unable to render any kind of nuance or subtlety. I felt as if he were standing behind me with a megaphone:

"Look! All the rooms are different colors! And the characters' clothes change color as they go into those rooms! Isn't that cool? Isn’t that neat? Don't you looooove that??? I bet it means something, don't you???"

"And hey, check out that singing kid in the kitchen. Wow, he's so angelic, with his angelic blonde curls and his angelic soprano voice and that angelic song he keeps angelically singing!"

"Wow, this guy is, like, a thief who wants to be upper-class, and look what he does to the guy with the books. Do you suppose, could it be, that there is some kind of statement here about criminals and upper-class people? And how they treat intellectuals?"

You get the picture.

Why was this movie such a darling of the critics (and I don't just mean Siskel and Ebert)? My own theory about movie critics is that they see too many normal, entertaining, thoughtful kind of movies and therefore become so bored that anything different seems good. And the same goes for interior decorators.

My husband declined to finish watching the movie due to boredom and disgust (or did I forget to mention the violence and the cannibalism?). I decided not to give up on it, hoping I would be rewarded in the end. I was not. The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover ranks as the worst movie I have ever seen. And I've seen some bad ones (which reminds me, I must write a review of Twister…)


Recommended: No

Viewing Format: VHS
Video Occasion: None of the Above
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age
Special Effects: Well at least you can't see the strings