Synopsis
The wife of an abusive criminal finds solace in the arms of a kind regular guest in her husband's restaurant.
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Cast
- Richard BohringerRichard Boarst
- Michael GambonAlbert Spica
- Helen MirrenGeorgina Spica
- Alan HowardMichael
- Tim RothMitchel
- Ciarán HindsCory
- Liz SmithGrace
- Gary OlsenSpangler
- Ewan StewartHarris
- Roger Ashton-GriffithsTurpin
Recommendations
- 100
Chicago Sun-Times
The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover is not an easy film to sit through. It doesn't simply make a show of being uncompromising -- it is uncompromised in every single shot from beginning to end. Why is it so extreme? Because it is a film made in rage, and rage cannot be modulated. - 100
The New York Times
Mr. Greenaway turns this tale of a bullying criminal and his unfaithful wife into something profound and extremely rare: a work so intelligent and powerful that it evokes our best emotions and least civil impulses, so esthetically brilliant that it expands the boundaries of film itself. - 88
ReelViews
If there's anything disgusting or grotesque that The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover doesn't dabble in, I'm at a loss to figure out what it is. This film, a wildly exuberant, bitingly satirical examination of excess, bad taste, and great acting, is the kind of over-the-top experience that will have timid movie-goers running (not just walking) for the exits. Taboos? If director Peter Greenaway has any, you can't tell by this film. - 80
Variety
Albert is one of the ugliest characters ever brought to the screen. Ignorant, over-bearing and violent, it’s a gloriously rich performance by Gambon. - 80
The A.V. Club
Here’s a film that opens with a man being smeared in excrement and closes with an even more horrifying act of revenge, yet it’s fevered, passionate, and occasionally erotic, at least by Greenaway standards. It’s a film awash in the color red, full of blood, sex, and rage, the rare Greenaway that feels alive as more than a formal or semiotic exercise. You may even catch him storytelling here and there. - 80
Empire
From the astonishing studio sets and (Gaultier-designed) costumes to Gambon’s performance (so ferociously wicked that it beggars description), Greenaway attacks his targets with a sadistic obsession that is, frankly, terrifying. Many people will be profoundly offended by this film — by the monstrous misanthropy that Greenaway lays bare through it, by the spiteful images of women in a vicious world — but some may appreciate it for what it certainly is: the most startling depiction of intellectual cruelty and evil for many years. - 60
TV Guide Magazine
Not surprisingly, his ranting soon becomes repetitive and boring. Greenaway's dialogue cannot sustain our interest, and his lack of humor is the film's biggest drawback. For a lover of games, the director is never remotely playful. - 50
Rolling Stone
Despite the lofty tone of his literary, artistic and metaphysical allusions, Greenaway is working the same streets of human depravity as John Waters; he's just more pretentious about it. At best, Greenaway's film is a provocative and diabolically funny foray into the roots of passion and cruelty. At worst, the symbolic bric-a-brac gets so thick you lose sight of the characters.
