Fresh
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.
Variety Staff, Variety
The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover
Lust...Murder...Dessert. Bon Appetit!
1989 · 2h 4m · NC-17
Crime, Drama
Directed by
Peter Greenaway
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The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover
Overview
When churlish mobster Albert Spica acquires an upscale French restaurant in London, he dines there nightly, effectively scaring off the clientele with his bad manners. His wife, Georgina, is especially disgusted by him, and soon begins an affair with regular guest Michael. Despite their best efforts to keep it secret, Spica learns about their trysts, and he plots a terrible revenge.
Director and cast
Critics on Rotten Tomatoes
Top critics, in their words
87%
Tomatometer
Rotten
For a Jacobean-style drama about deadly emotions, the film lacks passion; only in the final half-hour, with Michael Nyman's funereal music supplying a welcome gravity, does it at last exert a stately power.
Geoff Andrew, Time Out
Fresh
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.
Caryn James, New York Times
Fresh
It doesn't simply make a show of being uncompromising -- it is uncompromised in every single shot from beginning to end.
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
Fresh
Greenaway, the bemused, coolly ironic truth-teller, has painted a cruel portrait for a cruel time.
Hal Hinson, Washington Post
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