The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover ** (1989, Richard Bohringer, Michael Gambon, Helen Mirren, Alan Howard) – Classic Movie Review 10,649

Lust, murder, food, sex, torture, revenge and cannibalism are on the menu at Le Hollandais Restaurant, for Peter Greenaway’s 1989 film The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover. Michael Gambon plays a psychotic gangster who wreaks a terrible revenge. 

Lust, murder, food, sex, torture, revenge and cannibalism are on the rarefied menu at the gourmet Le Hollandais Restaurant, for Peter Greenaway’s 1989 film The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover.

A psychotic gangster called Albert Spica (Michael Gambon) wreaks a terrible revenge after he discovers that his wife Georgina (Helen Mirren) is making love to another customer, Michael (Alan Howard), at a posh restaurant that he frequents, Le Hollandais Restaurant, where Richard (Richard Bohringer) is the cook.

Writer-director Peter Greenaway’s grim, repellent 1989 revenger’s tragedy The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover shocks and disturbs. But, for those who can stomach it, the actors are on peak form, the visual style is stunningly sumptuous, and Sacha Vierny’s cinematography, Ben Van Os and Jan Roelfs’s sets and Jean-Paul Gaultier’s costumes are all dazzling, while Michael Nyman’s score is essential.

The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover is hard to watch and harder still to like.

Also in the cast are Tim Roth, Ciaran Hinds, Gary Olsen, Ewan Stewart, Roger Ashton-Griffiths, Ron Cook, Liz Smith, Ian Sears, Emer Gillespie, Janet Henfrey, Arnie Breeveld, Tony Alleff, Paul Russell, Alex Kingston, Willy Ross, Ian Dury, Diane Langton, Prudence Oliver, Roger Lloyd-Pack, Bob Goody, and Peter Ruch.

Michael Gambon died in hospital on 28 September 2023, aged 82, after suffering from pneumonia. He made his film debut in Othello (1965) and is remembered for The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989), The Wings of the Dove (1997), The Insider (1999), Gosford Park (2001), Amazing Grace (2006), The King’s Speech (2010), Quartet (2012), and Victoria & Abdul (2017), The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004), Fantastic Mr Fox (2009), and as Albus Dumbledore in the Harry Potter films from 2004 to 2011.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 10,649

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