SOURCE: Simon, John. “Bon Appetit!” National Review 42, no. 9 (14 May 1990): 52–56

In the following review, Simon examines the weaknesses of The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover, referring to the film as “altogether undesirable.”

Peter Greenaway's latest, The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, & Her Lover, is a film whose detestableness is heralded by its ponderous title. Have you noticed, by the way, the depredations of the ampersand on film titling? It is a dependable harbinger of disaster, as recently in Stanley & Iris, and now in what I'll shorten to CTW&L. Why those ampersands? It wasn't Romeo & Juliet or Crime & Punishment. But, beloved of law firms and typographers, the ampersand has become chic & is here to stay.

But back to Peter Greenaway, a British painter, novelist, and filmmaker. His first full-length effort, The Draftsman's Contract (1982), was so pretentious, hollow, and odious that it set my teeth on edge...