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What You Wish For can feel like “The Menu Part 2” in its mix of elite dining, luxury and grotesque suspense—but it is not a sequel. Nicholas Tomnay’s 2023 thriller is its own story about a chef who covets a privileged life and discovers what sustains it. Its polished surface makes that desire tempting; whether its increasingly disturbing turns deepen the social critique or crowd out the characters is the film’s central gamble.
What is What You Wish For about?
Ryan, a talented chef with gambling problems, flees to an unnamed Latin American country and stays with Jack, a chef friend whose affluent lifestyle he envies. A grim turn of events gives Ryan an opportunity to assume Jack’s identity. From there, the film follows the cost of stepping into a life that looked enviable from the outside.
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Careful What You Wish For (Blu-ray) | $12.98 | Buy on Amazon |
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Careful What You Wish For [Blu-ray] | $11.54 | Buy on Amazon |
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Written and directed by Nicholas Tomnay, the 2023 thriller runs 101 minutes. Fantasia International Film Festival lists Nick Stahl, Tamsin Topolski, Randy Vasquez and Penelope Mitchell among the cast. The story’s country is never named; the film was shot in Colombia, a distinction worth keeping clear.
Is What You Wish For like The Menu?
In theme and tone, there is a reasonable comparison: both films use elite dining and luxury as a surface for stories about class and exploitation. Fantasia also cites The White Lotus as a thematic point of comparison. But What You Wish For is a standalone thriller, not a sequel or franchise continuation. Fantasia says Tomnay wrote the screenplay in 2018 and that the film was shot before The White Lotus and The Menu were released.
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#1 Best Overall
The resemblance is most useful as a starting point, not a verdict. The Menu leans into social satire and a deliberately theatrical setup; Tomnay’s film builds suspense around Ryan’s compromised identity and the practical mechanics of the world he enters. UPI reviewer Fred Topel called it a B-movie knockoff of The Menu—his critical judgment, not a production fact or a consensus. My view is that the comparison catches the shared appetite for grotesque class critique, but understates the emphasis this film places on character pressure and identity.
How the film makes privilege look desirable
Tomnay says he wanted viewers to want what Ryan wants: “I want us to desire what he is desiring.” That intention shapes the film’s moral trap. The house, the service and the ease of a life insulated from ordinary consequences are presented with enough gloss to make Ryan’s envy legible before the story asks what that comfort depends on.
The contrast between the luxurious house and the poorer lives in the valley gives that seduction a social dimension. Tomnay describes it as a way to expose exploitation and imperialism, with the audience seeing what the privileged residents exploit. The film’s most effective critique comes when that inequality is not just a theme but part of the atmosphere surrounding Ryan’s new role.
Rank #2
Visually, the film has a controlled, polished look that suits the contrast between surface elegance and what lies beneath it. Tomnay says the production used a limited range of focal lengths, carefully chosen colors, production design and location to establish its style. That is his account of the intent; as a viewer, I found the restraint useful in making the setting feel composed even as the story grows more unnerving.
Ryan, Imogene and the shifting moral perspective
Tomnay describes the film as told subjectively through Ryan’s point of view. That alignment keeps the audience close to a man whose choices are compromised, but not necessarily beyond sympathy. The tension is more interesting than a simple question of whether Ryan is good or bad: how much of his conscience can survive the life he is trying to take?
Imogene, played by Tamsin Topolski, is a different kind of pressure. Tomnay characterizes her as a pragmatist who rationalizes her role in the system. Her confidence gives the story a counterweight to Ryan’s uneasy adaptation, and their dynamic is sharper when the film lets her logic stand on its own rather than treating her as a mere obstacle.
Rank #3
- Careful What You Wish For
- Careful What You Wish For
Alice and Detective Ruiz bring other forms of uncertainty to the story. Tomnay calls Alice an element of chaos and describes Ruiz as a moral character who initially appears antagonistic. Their presence broadens the film beyond a two-person contest: one connection can disrupt the order Ryan is entering, while the other invites doubt about who is actually enforcing a moral boundary.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Spoilers: what the twists do to the story
Warning: the discussion below reveals major turns and the ending.
Once Ryan has taken Jack’s place, the film’s central question becomes less about whether the new identity can be maintained than about what Ryan is willing to accept in exchange for keeping it. The grotesque revelations recast the luxury he envied as part of an exploitative arrangement. That shift gives the premise its bite: Ryan is not simply trapped by a shocking secret; he has to decide what to do now that he knows what his desired life costs.
Rank #4
The character dynamics keep the revelation from being only a mechanism for shock. Imogene’s command of the situation, Ryan’s attempt to reconcile self-preservation with conscience, Alice’s disruptive presence and Ruiz’s apparent suspicion each apply a different kind of pressure. The film is strongest when those pressures collide. At times, however, the machinery of the twists threatens to become the point, leaving less room for the emotional consequences to settle.
The ending also leaves a deliberate uncertainty around whether Imogene knows Ryan’s true identity. Tomnay says he intended that ambiguity and suggests it does not alter the corporate logic: someone can fill the role. That reading makes the uncertainty chilling rather than merely coy. Whether it fully resolves the question of Imogene’s personal knowledge is left to the viewer.
Does What You Wish For work as a thriller?
It works best as a polished, morally uneasy thriller that wants its comforts to be part of the problem. The glossy style and the increasingly disturbing premise reinforce one another; the film first makes the lifestyle attractive, then makes that attraction uncomfortable. The character interplay gives the suspense more texture than the setup alone would promise.
Its limitation is also tied to its design. The escalating grotesquerie can threaten to overwhelm the people caught in it, and viewers looking for a subtle or purely psychological treatment may find the turns too emphatic. For me, the film’s ambition lands most clearly in its seduction-and-complicity tension, even when the twist-heavy plotting pulls attention away from that idea.
Where to watch or buy What You Wish For
Magnet Releasing’s official film page links to home-viewing options, including DVD and Blu-ray purchases through Amazon. The page also points to Magnolia Selects, but current streaming availability depends on territory and date; the page alone does not establish which services carry the film now. See the official What You Wish For page for its available links.
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