What You Wish For

Ryan, a cook fleeing the country over gambling debts, takes shelter with an old schoolfriend in Latin America. His friend's job is luxurious: private dinners for wealthy clients, very well paid. Ryan decides to take his place. Then he learns what the menu is. The film is not interested in horror. It is interested in acceptance arriving step by step: it shows Ryan the exit repeatedly and he chooses to stay every time. The subject is not monstrousness but which line will be crossed for money. The form is thriller: a single house, calm colours, table preparations and a tightening clock. The violence is mostly outside the frame and the tension is built in the kitchen scenes. Nicholas Tomnay wrote and directed. It was largely shot in one location and gets its tension from the setup rather than the budget. Nick Stahl plays Ryan and is in nearly every scene; the performance carries the film. Who it is for: viewers who like single-location thrillers and stories of moral collapse. Who it is not for: anyone who cannot take what the dinner scenes imply. The film does not show its subject outright but implies it constantly and goes further at the end.