Who would have thought that it would be Ruben Östlund (“The Square”) of all people who have one of the currently most tiring trends in the European contemporary film? It is not even the films of the director, which is decorated at the Film Festival in Cannes with two golden palm trees, who are fueling this development – regardless of how to stand by them. But the success of films such as its bright, not only a lot of decorated, but also at the box office “Triangle of Sadness”, who has been successful at the box office, apparently triggered a hardly-ending series much simpler and much more unresolved-and with “Delicious“Netflix now has one of them in the portfolio.
The film has staged the film Nele Mueller stoves, as an actress for 30 years. In 2015 she gave her directorial debut with the very pretty short film “Am Strand”, and she also wrote to the script for two films by “In the West nothing new” director Edward Berger (namely “Jack” and “All My Loving”). Your first own long film is not only uninspired, but also surprisingly cumbersome.
The life of the wealthy couple Esther (Valerie Pachner) and John (Fahri Yardim) is turned upside down by the new housekeeper.
It is told in “Delicious” by a well-heighted family on France vacation: Mother Esther (Valerie Pachner) is a high animal in any Global player company, Papa John (Fahri Yardim) is a scientist with plagiarism scandal on the heels-and the children Philipp (Caspar Hoffmann) and Alba (Naila Schuberth) grow up in abundance, but are also directly brought into the class and performance society. They would never be sick, they tell the new housemaid Teodora (Carla Díaz) once, because because they shouldn't be.
Teodora entered the family's holiday home as a stranger, despite John's clear reluctance: drunk at the wheel, he hit the woman on the night home and injured, which is why she loses her job as a carpenter in the hotel, where we are already with her at the beginning Colleagues saw who also like to urinate the wealthy guests into the mineral water bottle. So Teodora suggests that she could work temporarily for the family. Esther finally agrees with such discreetly, and Teodora begins to sneak a role in family life that goes far beyond that of a domestic worker …
Another “TEOREMA”
This scheme is well known, because Pasolini's “Teorema-Geometry of Love”, in which a young, handsome guest is sleeping across a dysfunctional large industrial family, has been part of those classics in film history for almost six decades, of which the international arthouse -Kino never gets tired, never to be extended to the original quasi-remakes anyway produce. In this respect, we basically know exactly from the start that every family member will now be involved in history in any way. And that the already crumbling, not so functional family association will not emerge from the affair without prejudice, is anything but a surprise.
How exactly this is going on, and also which genre “Delicious” belongs in the end, not much can be written here, because producer Netflix is very worried about any spoilers in the meetings of this film and for this reason lists a whole series of Things that may not occur in this criticism. But it is actually not actually necessary to spoil anything but subtle film, because every twist is announced by miles anyway.
Teodora (Carla Díaz) has a different way in every family member.
Like a kind of streaming service Whistblower, the showrunner Mike McMahon, who was responsible for the animation series “Star Trek: Lower Decks” on Paramount+ responsible, recently pointed out that he was pointed out in the conception phase that not too much should happen in every episode of his show. Because how else should those spectators be able to follow the events, which would also be prepared spaghetti, for example. This behavior is now referred to as “casual viewing”, and “Delicious” not only fits pretty well into such a more precise list of such spaghetti films.
Even with shared attention, you will probably not miss anything essentially, and even if you were so inattentive (or so few other films know a similar design) that you will actually be surprised by the revelations, then everything will be done again, everything will be done again anyway clearly pronounced and explained as an off comment. And actually you have forgotten all of this again, while the credits are still running, because “Delicious” actually only has to subtract from his genre, which we are not allowed to call here.
Conclusion: a toothless and completely unoriginal class struggle satire, somewhere between a harmless, uninspired Ruben-Östlund-Abwatz and the felt thousandth remake of Pasolini's “Teorema”. You can safely save yourself.
We saw “Delicious” in the Panorama section as part of the Berlinale 2025.