This is probably Peter Greenaways most famous (or infamous) film, which first shocked audiences at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival and then on both sides of the Atlantic. A gang leader (Michael Gambon), accompanied by his wife (Helen Mirren) and his associates, entertains himself every night in a fancy French restaurant that he has recently bought. Having tired of her sadistic, boorish husband, the wife finds herself a lover (Alan Howard) and makes love to him in the restaurants coziest places with the silent permission of the cook (Richard Bohringer). Though less cerebral than Greenaways other films, featuring deadly passions reminiscent of Jacobean revenge tragedies of the early 17th century, the picture still offers the directors usual ironic and paradoxical comments on the relations between eating and sex, love and death. The film is at once funny and horrific, and those who are not used to Greenaways peculiar style might be even disgusted or shocked; however, one might mention Sacha Viernys brilliant camerawork, Jean-Paul Gaultiers gaudily stylized costumes, and Michael Nymans somber, pulsating music, which will haunt the viewer long after the films end. ~ Yuri German, All Movie Guide