Ipswich Film Society

The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover (1989)

2009/10 Season

THE COOK, THE THIEF, HIS WIFE AND HER LOVER

UK/France 1989 (18)
124 minutes
Directed by Peter Greenaway

Hollywood Film Theatre - 16 November 2009 - 7.30pm
A coarse gangster holds court in a fashionable restaurant while his wife has a passionate affair in the kitchens with a fellow diner. This is an elegant, stylised and brutal variation on a Jacobean revenge tragedy, connecting sex, food, love and death and starring Michael Gambon, Helen Mirren and Alan Howard.
AUDIENCE COMMENTS: Exreme macabre. More Venetian than Jacobean. Quite terrifying in the inevitable outcome. Michael and Helen at their best; A visual feast of life, sex, food and death. Gruesome and beautiful; Food for thought but highly indigestable; Visually stunning. Good to see Liz Smith and Ian Dury and great performances from Gambon and Mirren, but too long and certainly the silliest film I've ever seen; A prententious, puerile and protracted waste of time, money and talent.

The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover (1989)

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