Delicious’ ending was basically about revealing the fact that [Spoiler Alert] Teodora and her friends are cannibals, and they are “eating the rich” by literally eating the rich. The film followed a German family—John, Esther, Alba, and Philipp—who arrived at Esther’s parents’ villa, which was located at a remote location in Provence, France. While returning from a night out in the town, a drunk John apparently hit a young woman named Teodora on the highway. Instead of taking her to a hospital, Esther advised they should take her to the villa and give her first aid, thereby saving John from getting slapped with a DUI charge. Claiming that she had been fired from her job due to the injury that she had sustained, Teodora began working as a housekeeper at the villa. After a while, Teodora began picking the family apart, with some outside help from her friends, Lucien, Prince, Estelle, and Bojan. And when the time was right, Teodora and her cannibal buddies went in for the kill. That said, they let Alba and Philipp live. Why, though? Well, allow me to theorize.
Why Did Teodora Let Alba Live?
It’s unclear if Teodora ever actually liked Alba or if she just saw her as someone who could be converted and made to fight for the cause of the working class. During the first proper interaction between the two, Teodora used one of the Harry Potter books to teach her three French expletives that defined John, Philipp, and Esther; I’ll let you figure out which insult was meant for whom. Teodora didn’t take advantage of Alba’s lack of understanding of the French language to demean her to her face, though. In doing so, Teodora created a false sense of trust and caused Alba to lower her defenses. Then she began stealing Esther’s stuff right before Alba’s eyes. Every time Alba complained to Esther about Teodora’s actions, the latter got an opportunity to show Esther that Alba was lying just to get some attention or for some other inexplicable reason. Due to that, Alba felt more and more isolated and insecure about how she was being perceived by her own people. I guess the last straw was Esther running away with Lucien, John taking away the lighter that Teodora had given to Alba, and John forcing Alba to throw away the frog she had saved from dying in the pool (which highlighted Alba’s caring nature). So, on that fateful night when Teodora and her friends killed Esther, John, and Cora (we never saw John and Cora’s dead bodies though), Alba probably felt that she was finally free to do whatever she wanted to do. Hence, she sat behind Teodora on her bike as her newfound friend drove off into the sunset with her group.
Delicious’ ending doesn’t clarify if Alba is aware of the fact that Teodora and her friends are cannibals. If she knows that and has still decided to join them on their endeavor to “eat the rich,” then I guess that’s fine. If she doesn’t know, then she is up for a rude awakening, and I don’t know if Teodora is going to let Alba walk away if she chooses to opt out of the human meat diet plan. That said, Teodora taking Alba under her wing after giving that whole speech about literally consuming the privileged makes things a little confusing, especially since the movie doesn’t really dwell on this choice. By sparing Alba, someone who has been born into wealth, the working class (represented by the cannibals) is showing that they are more merciful than those who are financially superior to them. The rich don’t care if they are killing children as well as adults while filling their coffers. When the poor have the upper hand, at least they are merciful towards the kids. Is that the point Delicious is trying to make by letting Alba live? Your guess is as good as mine.
Why Did Teodora Let Philipp Live?
I can sort of get behind the decision to let Alba live because she is just a baby. But what about Philipp? From the get-go, it was obvious that Philipp fancied Teodora, and Teodora played along because he wasn’t being creepy. Philipp even showed some level of self-awareness when his family invited their friends, Cora and Aki, over for dinner, as he commented on income inequality and how “servers” work as hard as his parents, but they don’t earn enough money to even make ends meet. When the topic of Esther building a factory in Valencia came up, Cora wondered if Germany was becoming too dependent on other countries. Philipp pointed out that Esther and investors like her were resorting to outsourcing because of the cheap labor that countries like Spain provided. The adults tried to make a point that that kind of exploitation benefited both sides, but Philipp defended his stance by stating that the laborers saw merely a fraction of the profit that their employers were making, which was unfair. Now, based on all this, you can make the argument that Teodora saw some potential in Philipp. Maybe she and her cannibal friends felt that if they allowed Philipp to live, whilst only traumatizing him by getting him to accidentally eat a chunk of meat from his father or mother’s body (which had one of their rings embedded in it) he’d eventually see the world from the working class’s perspective and use his privilege to fight for equality.
However, Philipp was a grade-A creep. He was literally taking photos of Teodora’s bum. Sure, he felt embarrassed when Teodora called him out for his weird actions, but the fact that he thought he could just do that in the first place was disturbing. Yet in Delicious’ ending, Philipp got a free pass during Teodora and the cannibals’ crusade? So, it’s fine to be a potential sex offender with a huge bank balance if you harbor some anti-capitalist opinions? Was Teodora banking on the notion that Philipp will stop being an outright douchebag once he no longer has his mom and dad to depend on? Sure, maybe he won’t get his dad’s money, because he wasn’t making any. But Philipp is going to inherit his mom’s and his grandparents’ money. And what does she think he is going to do with the power that’ll come with that wealth? Is he going to redistribute it because a bunch of cannibals ate his parents and stole his sister in the name of rebelling against class inequality? No! He is probably going to widen the gap between the rich and the poor and practice the same kind of exploitation that he was complaining about earlier just to get back at Teodora and those like her. It’s so obvious. Man, what the hell kind of an “eat the rich” movie is this?
Eat the Rich, But Not Exactly?
Capitalism and income inequality have always been reflected in the type of movies that are being made. We have always known that the rich oppress the poor and ensure that this economic divide exists so that they can monetize desperation under the guise of “creating employment.” And stuff like Glass Onion, Ready or Not, Knives Out, Snowpiercer, The Menu, Parasite, The Platform, Hunger, Neeyat, Squid Game, and more have underscored this fact with highlighter pens and permanent markers so that we, the working class, never forget who the real enemy is. Now, when it comes to the depiction of the privileged and the underprivileged, writers and directors have shown the latter to be crusaders of justice and the former the purveyors of injustice. I don’t know about everyone else, but after watching these anti-capitalist films and shows, I’ve never come away thinking that the poor are the villains and the rich are the victims. Delicious hasn’t changed that sentiment either, but it did make me doubt Nele Mueller-Stofen’s intent. On one hand, she is really subtle with the insensitive behavior of Esther, her family, and John’s associates; it’s so subtle that it’ll go unnoticed. She puts a lot of care into establishing the dynamics between John, Esther, Alba, and Philipp.
But, on the other hand, she uses sinister music when it comes to Teodora and draws visual parallels between the cannibal revolutionaries with ants and rodents. We never get to know a lot about Teodora, Lucien, Prince, Estelle, and Bojan. They just look at everything in a cold way and then eat people. And just when it seems like they are ruthless when it comes to literally “eating the rich,” because they’ve eaten Esther, John, and Cora, they spare the lives of Alba and Philipp for reasons known only to them. Hence, the final product is not only confusing; it also borders on problematic. In an attempt to go for this big cannibalism twist, Mueller-Stofen, purposely or accidentally, ends up making a “hate the poor because they’re coming to get you” statement, which is certainly not okay. I am all for stories that draw parallels between cannibalism and capitalism. I really liked Fresh, which actually showed the rich eating the flesh of the poor. The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover used cannibalism to punish the rich. It’s evident that Delicious was trying to subvert that trope by having the poor eat the rich and going for that mixture of shock and introspection but failed to do so because of its lack of confidence in its themes and characters. Anyway, those are just my thoughts on Delicious’ ending. What did you think about the movie? Let me know in the comments below.
