SOURCE: D'Arcy, Chantal Cornut-Gentille. “Peter Greenaway's The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover.” Literature Film Quarterly 27, no. 2 (April 1999): 116–25.

In the following essay, D'Arcy examines The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover as a commentary on gender roles and political Thatcherism.

In spite of a deceptively simple title that conjures up all the charm of a folk tale, The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover is, to say the least, a complex film so divergent in its various implications as to defy the possibility of any single explanation. However, it is precisely the multiplicity of possible interpretations that gives Peter Greenaway's 1989 production its uniquely effective “ambiguous identity.” At times, the ambiguity is so baffling and some of the scenes so brutal that the spectator is tempted to cry off. Nevertheless, the ambiguous nature of the film also gives it its tremendous strength and...