One of Greenaway′s most talked about films is this allegorical story of appetites for sex, greed, and power. A loathsome, ambitious petty gangster, the thief, owns La Hollandaise. The frequently humiliated cook runs the extravagant and decadent restaurant, and it is the setting for the trysts that will take place between the gangster′s wife and her new lover. The monstrous behaviour by the thief carries on night after night, as does the affair between the lovers as aided by the cook. When the thief discovers the betrayal, one act of revenge demands another, acts that end in grisly yet poetic denouement. Normally detached and cerebral, Greenaway′s ferocious, angry film is also one of his most artistically accomplished. The use of color and the theatricality of the sets and costumes serve to code and contrast the ironic behaviors occurring in each space. Greenaway stays within the realm of his favorite themes-sex, death, base human needs to make a statement about the entrepreneurial class in Thatcherite Britain that is universal in its relevancy. Savage, brutal and mesmerizing.