Indie Spotlight: What You Wish For (2024)

“What You Wish For” is a devilishly dark and delicious tale of pernicious privilege and the consequences of hungering for the finer things.

Someday, someone far wiser than I will sit down and write a fascinating piece on the class indicators of cannibalism in horror movies. Perhaps it’s the intimacy of the action, the implications of choosing to literally consume our fellow man, that makes it so ideal for social commentary.

Cannibalism has always been present in horror movies, but it has often indicated a certain ferality. In movies like Motel Hell, it’s the recourse of hillbillies, the woefully poor, and the deeply under-educated.

In recent years, however, there has been a notable pendulum swing in the consumption of long pigs. We had Hannibal, the character, sure. However, the TV show specifically shows cannibalism rendered painfully elegant and aristocratic.

Fresh showed a world where eating young women is akin to eating an ortolan bunting, desired largely because of its exclusivity and because it is a privilege that wealth affords.

What You Wish For, written and directed by Nicholas Tomnay, uses cannibalism to ruthlessly poke the wealthy.

The film suggests the violence left in the wake of the hyper-rich’s childish insistence on absolute indulgence and their complete indifference and obliviousness to the destruction left in their wake.

The movie begins simply enough with down-on-his-luck chef Ryan (played with perfect resignation and desperation by Nick Stahl) visiting Jack (Brian Groh), his slightly less talented classmate from culinary school who seems to have stumbled into an impossibly lavish lifestyle.

Jack works for a company that provides high-end culinary experiences, and he and Ryan are camping out at the house that is intended for Jack’s next job. Cracks begin showing beneath Jack’s sunny demeanor pretty quickly, and he indicates that the glamor isn’t all it’s made out to be. Ryan, running from gambling debts, is dubious-what could be the drawback to getting paid huge amounts of money to cook high-end food in exotic locations?

Ryan wakes to find Jack has committed suicide, and our guy does what he does best — makes a truly terrible decision. Ryan assumes Jack’s identity, a decision which comes back to bite him in the ass pretty immediately.

Mileage will, of course, vary, but I was personally charmed by Ryan repeatedly fucking up. It made infinitely more sense to me that a trained chef might be pretty bad at handling being thrust into deeply weird, highly upsetting situations. Ryan is now Jack, and Jack has a job to do for a company that makes it pretty clear: the job is done, or we’ll finish you.

I have made it pretty clear in the opening paragraph of this review what makes the assignment so uniquely challenging, but it won’t be hard for viewers to parse once talk begins about sourcing “produce”. Ryan does NOT have the knowledge Jack does about the assignment but now has to choose a local to turn into dinner, and this sets into motion a delightfully sinister series of events.

Part of the fun of What You Wish For is watching Ryan try to keep up the illusion that he’s Jack (I strongly suspect the movie suggests his employers know he’s full of shit. They also know that they have him by the short curlies, so they don’t care) and to do so poorly.

It’s grounded and realistic in a way that “man assumes other man’s identity” stories often aren’t. He rushed into this decision with no time for research, and now he’s paying the price.

However, the greatest strength of What You Wish For is how unflinchingly dark it is.

It’s not a movie with twists, per se; everything that happens feels like the logical end, but we, as viewers, are trained to watch for the cavalry on the horizon, the happy ending coming around the mountain.

But What You Wish For suggests you have to live with the consequences of your actions — at least, you do if you’re a working man. While the movie holds Nick’s feet to the flames, it saves its most venomous commentary for the wealthy cosplaying as rebels. They think they’re living dangerously, but everyone around them is taking the real risks. They are bad people, but not interesting bad people; they’re kind of boring and pathetic. And perhaps the worst horror of the movie is that there is absolutely no comeuppance for them. The rich eat the poor and force the slightly less poor to butcher and serve them.

If that’s not a metaphor for American politics…

What You Wish For is, of course, receiving rampant comparisons to The Menu — a comparison I understand as much as I disagree with. Anya Taylor wins at the end of The Menu, and the sycophants are punished by the staff serving them.

What You Wish For offers no such catharsis. Ryan is Jack now. The cycle continues.

It is a brilliant, sharp gem of a movie that will stick to your ribs (and maybe reignite your fire for eating the rich).