SOURCE: Grant, Edmond. Review of The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover, by Peter Greenaway. Films in Review 42, nos. 10/11 (October–November 1990): 488–90.

In the following review, Grant argues that the elements of political allegory in The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover cannot adequately emerge because of the film's highly stylized form.

Although it seems unusual, and highly pretentious, to call vulgarity “aesthetic,” the brand of vulgarity practiced in this masterfully overdone work [The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover] from director Peter Greenaway is just that. Which is not to say that it's pretty, or to attempt to excuse the film's clever cruelties with an academic appraisal. It's simply that, in the insular, hyper-stylized world that Greenaway fashions, the distasteful acts performed by Albert Spica (“the Thief,” played by Michael Gambon) seem like a natural part of the scenery.

For the film...