Michael Gambon's best film is a violent work of art

• They may be unaware that Gambon was a highly regarded theatre actor, then an award-winning TV favourite, then an art-house film star, before he became a Hollywood celebrity and national treasure.
• Much of the film takes place in Le Hollandais, an upper-class restaurant where Spica, his gang and his wife, Georgina (played by Helen Mirren), dine every night.
• The opening scene involves Spica exhibiting cruel, sadistic tendencies toward a debtor – I’ll spare you the unpleasant details.

A violent man realised

• From there, things become more violent and veer into the barbaric and perhaps obscene.
• The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover is a graphically violent work of art-house cinema.
• The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover is about human relationships but also touches on the importance of food in our culture.
• Set in a restaurant, food plays a central role and the boundaries of it are played with to extreme and uncomfortable ways.
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