Summary
- Dark humor and moral dilemmas make for a captivating thriller.
- Nick Stahl shines as Ryan in this twisted dinner party tale.
- Tomnay’s genre film serves as a Trojan horse for social commentary about greed and apathy.
Writer-director Nicholas Tomnay (The Perfect Host) puts a fine spin on the adage, “Be careful what you wish for” in his new noir thriller. What You Wish For stars Nick Stahl as Ryan, a talented chef with mounting gambling problems. Perhaps Ryan has always longed for a quick fix or a lavish lifestyle, something that money can certainly buy, but in this engaging morality tale, it may come at too big of a cost.
Ryan’s salvation may be a trap in disguise. The gist of his tale revolves around a dinner party at which Ryan’s job is to prepare the finest meal of his life for his employers’ guests. If anything goes awry, the punishment may result in death. How Ryan wound up working for his employers and why he needs to make this dinner is one of the film’s best reveals. If you happened to catch Tomnay’s previous 2010 film, The Perfect Host, you’ll see parallels here. In that film, David Hyde Pierce chews up the scenery at every turn after a convict, seeking temporary cover, lands on his doorstep and becomes part of a wicked little dinner party.
What You Wish For is more grounded than that tale, but dark humor abounds as Stahl turns in a fine performance as a man trapped in a cycle of greed and mind-bending fetishes.
A Lavish Yet Twisted Dinner Party
What You Wish For
3.5/5
Mired in gambling debts and miserable in his life, a chef assumes the identity of an old culinary friend who’s a private chef for the wealthy. As the motives of his mysterious clients become clear, he desperately tries to find a way out.
- Release Date
- May 31, 2024
- Director
- Nicholas Tomnay
- Cast
- Nick Stahl , Tamsin Topolski , Penelope Mitchell
- Runtime
- 1h 41m
- Writers
- Nicholas Tomnay
- Studio(s)
- Freestyle Picture Company
- Distributor(s)
- Magnet Releasing
- Uses genre to convey philosophical ideas
- A great central performance from Nick Stahl who carries the drama
- Nicely mixes in dark humor
- Protagonist lacked depth, some backstory would have helped audiences understand him better
Nicholas Tomnay’s seemingly by-the-book plot is enjoyable and the absurdity — an exotic side dish, if you will — elevate the overall story here. We find Ryan escaping his fractured life and arriving in an unnamed tropical Latin American country. His friend, Jack (Brian Groh), takes him in. Ryan has always admired Jack. More so now that he’s a prestigious chef. But Jack has his own dilemmas, and they’re about to catch up with him, offering Ryan a rare opportunity. Chucking morality aside, Ryan opts to assume his pal’s identity. But that proves to be a disastrous move.
Now “Jack,” Ryan receives his new culinary assignment from Imogene (Tamsin Topolski), a steely powerhouse who is coordinating a very important dinner with some very elite and wealthy individuals. That she comes with a staff of devotees and bodyguards is a major tip-off that the dinner party will be far from ordinary. And Ryan soon discovers why.
12:47
Nick Stahl Unpacks What You Wish For with the Thriller’s Director & Opens Up About His Break from Hollywood
Nick Stahl and filmmaker Nicholas Tomnay dish on their noir-inspired culinary thriller about identity theft and twisted dinner parties.
A Foody Thriller That Could Use More Exposition
The film’s pace picks up at this point, but Tomnay takes great care in never presenting things so over the top that it devolves into pure camp. The tension percolates throughout. Food porn filters into this creative menu, of course, and if you’re a fan of cooking shows, you’ll appreciate the precision with which Tomnay handles these scenes. The actual dinner party and the guests don’t get that much screen time. Not really.
This affair isn’t like The Menu, but like that film, it occasionally feels as if there are several missing ingredients. It could have benefited from deeper character exploration or something from which we can better understand Ryan and how we wound up in this mess, or even something more about his past.
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Instead, Tomnay’s genre film acts as a Trojan horse to express sociopolitical ideas. In this case, how much America has become completely uninterested in the world as a community. You see it in the dinner guests — the insipid conversation — and in Imogene’s cold glare and placating delivery. It’s as if nobody is aware that the world is burning down all around them, but by God… they WILL have a lavish meal.
Penelope Mitchell offers a nice turn here as well, as Alice. She arrives early on, meeting Ryan before he’s assumed her friend, Jack’s, identity — imagine her surprise when she pops in during the dinner party. Another foil comes via a local detective (Randy Vasquez) sent to investigate Jack’s disappearance. While there’s dark humor throughout, the tension dial gets turned up to “high” toward the latter part of this different kind of thriller.
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Nick Stahl Is What We Wished For
Tomnay found the perfect weapon to keep us interested in What You Wish For — Nick Stahl. The former child actor and star of Man Without a Face, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Fear the Walking Dead, and, more recently, Knights of the Zodiac, who braved many twists and turns in his own life. His re-emergence several years ago gave us an even more grounded performer who’s fully comfortable in his own skin.
Stahl doesn’t miss a beat here and the range of reactions (and non-reactions) make for a solid outing. There’s a knowing look in his eyes as Ryan. It’s the look of a man who’s endured unpredictable storms in his personal life. Which is why he initially goes along with the trippy culinary ride.
The film’s culinary theme is a winning point, and the attractive location is great eye candy. It’s wonderfully shot, too, making great use of just several locales. Aside from wanting to know more about some of the characters, What You Wish For ultimately becomes a tasty noir thriller, indeed. What You Wish For hits theaters May 31. It’s also available on demand and digital platforms like Google Play, Prime Video, Fandango at Home, and on Apple TV through the link below:
