What You Wish For: The Consequence of Cravings
My dad, ever the storyteller, sets the scene for his grisliest memory like so: Newly married and not making enough money, he was driving to work one day behind a man in a very nice car. According to my dad, he was filled with envious thoughts—why couldn’t he live large like that?—when an explosion blew both that nice car and its driver to bits.
There’s more to the story (familial mafia connections, FBI investigations, et cetera), just as there’s more to What You Wish For, a 2024 thriller from writer-director Nicholas Tomnay, but as that film’s title implies they both share a common proverbial warning. In What You Wish For, Ryan (Nick Stahl) jumps at the chance to escape his gambling debts with an impulsive trip to Colombia to see Jack (Brian Groh), his former roommate from culinary school. Both men are talented chefs, but only one has found success; Ryan works in the kitchen of a hotel chain, while Jack stays in sumptuous Airbnbs across the world as he prepares meals for high-paying clients.
Jack is easy-going and welcoming, even as Ryan bridles with resentment at his apparently perfect lifestyle. As the two reconnect with each other and befriend fellow tourist Alice (Penelope Mitchell), Ryan tries to find out how Jack got the gig and openly hints at wanting in on it. Jack, in turn, is cagey with details and quick to turn down Ryan’s offer of serving as a sous chef on his upcoming client dinner, only opaquely referencing stressors of the job. The film moves smoothly from exposition to a twist as Ryan wakes up one morning to find Jack swinging from a noose, having killed himself in the night.
Ryan’s in a bad enough place to choose to dispose of Jack’s body rather than tell the police, and plans to use some of Jack’s millions to pay off the bookies threatening to harm his family. But an even sweeter deal arrives in the form of Imogen (Tamsin Topolski), Jack’s boss who, serendipitously, has never met her employee in person before now, and mistakes Ryan for his erstwhile friend, ready to cook a meal that’ll net $300,000.
If you ignore some of its plot contrivances, What You Wish For nicely sets the stage for a steady thriller with a strong bite. I won’t spoil the more major twists, but suffice to say it falls in line with dark satires like The Menu and Triangle of Sadness. Stahl is well-suited to play an anti-hero who, despite his amorality, you can’t help but root for as the stakes heighten. Paired with a truly beautiful setting—both inside the expansive lodgings and throughout the scenes of Colombia—and slickly handled violence, Tomnay creates a tense story with thematic overtones that earn the tongue-in-cheek title.