Why did hit movie 'The Menu' make a key character be from Brockton?

Chris Helms, The Enterprise
·2 min read

BROCKTON — An edgy horror-comedy now in theaters serves up an unexpected shout-out to the City of Champions.

"The Menu" stars Anya Taylor-Joy and Ralph Fiennes. The action takes place at an exclusive restaurant on its own island in the Pacific Northwest. The movie has nothing to do with Brockton. That is, until Taylor-Joy's character admits, toward the end, that she isn't who she said she was.

"Not that you guys give a single, flying ****, but my name is not Margot. It's Erin. And I'm from Brockton, Massachusetts. So there's that," she says between drags of her cigarette toward the end of the movie.

Brocktonians have noticed.

"I actually needed to be sedated during this moment," posted Brockton-born Twitter user Sammy Swoosh, who saw it in a theater.

A resident watching from home, where "The Menu" is currently airing on HBO Max, reported that everyone in the room stood up when Brockton makes its unexpected cameo.

The Enterprise wanted to know why writers Seth Reiss and Will Tracy chose to make Margot/Erin be from Brockton. Here's what we found out:

"Writer Seth Reiss went to Boston University and is familiar with the area. He felt that Margot, at heart, was a Brockton girl," said Michelle Matalon, a publicist with Searchlight Pictures.

Still from "The Menu," a Searchlight Pictures film starring Anya Taylor-Joy (right), whose character is from Brockton. Here she speaks to Ralph Fiennes, who plays Chef Julian Slowik.
Still from "The Menu," a Searchlight Pictures film starring Anya Taylor-Joy (right), whose character is from Brockton. Here she speaks to Ralph Fiennes, who plays Chef Julian Slowik.

Taylor-Joy does not attempt a Brockton accent. But she is recognizably Brocktonian in that she turns out to be a scrappy survivor. Her sympathies are on the side of the people cooking and serving the food, not the fops consuming it.

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“We wanted to be really careful in skewering the industry and walked this tightrope, poking at it while remaining deeply respectful of the artform and the humans who are involved,” director Mark Mylod wrote in the film's production notes. “When I got involved, I did my own personal dive into that world to educate myself on how it worked and the level of commitment and the stress of maintaining that extraordinary level of art night after night. It destroys people. It’s incredibly high pressure.”

Production still from "The Menu," a Searchlight Pictures film starring Anya Taylor-Joy, left, whose character is from Brockton.
Production still from "The Menu," a Searchlight Pictures film starring Anya Taylor-Joy, left, whose character is from Brockton.

Margot/Erin turns out to be in the service industry herself. Nicholas Hoult's name-dropping foodie, Tyler, brings her along as his "date." But Margot/Erin is actually a paid escort. And a problem for Fiennes' Chef Julian Slowik, since she wasn't supposed to be there.

"The Menu," runs 107 minutes. It's rated R for strong/disturbing violent content, language throughout and some sexual references.

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This article originally appeared on The Enterprise: Brockton: Ann Taylor-Joy's character in movie 'The Menu" is from city