'Delicious' Ending Explained & Movie Story: Did Alba And Phillip Survive?

Director Nele Mueller-Stöfen’s drama movie, Delicious, is the latest, not-so-subtle addition to the ‘Eat-the-Rich’ genre of movies, one that tries to take inspiration from movies like Parasite and Saltburn in its portrayal of class conflict but ends up vilifying the downtrodden even more in the process. I’m sure the makers had set out to project a much different sentiment, as the critique of capitalism and the apathy of the privileged is very much apparent from the very first scene of the movie. However, the final half of the narrative takes on a very different, predictable turn—which goes to ruin the social commentary the movie was trying to make. It would have been better had the makers chosen a different genre altogether, as the comedy and horror genres have proven to be effective in acting as vessels for this class-conflict theme. Unfortunately, being constrained as a drama, Delicious is a one-trick pony, the movements of which can be predicted from the title itself.

Spoilers Ahead

Why Did Esther Bring Teodora Into The Villa?

A family of four from Germany: Esther, John, and their children, teenage son Philipp and young daughter Alba, arrive at their summer villa in Provence, France. Esther has a high-profile job and comes from generational wealth, as it is revealed that the villa belongs to her father. John is a researcher who has been facing work trouble as his latest research paper has been rejected by the firm he works for, and he is on the verge of getting fired—something he has kept hidden from his family. John and Esther might have their differences, but something that is quite common in both of them is their indifference for people who are less fortunate, as becomes apparent from the very first scene of the movie. As the family drives through a busy street in France, they come across protesters who are raising their voices against rising economic inequality. The situation feels very alien to the family members as they wait for the crowd to disperse so they can go on their merry way. 

One of the major motifs in the movie is the occasional appearance of pests in the summer villa—which symbolizes the penetration of hapless, underprivileged ones into the bubble of security the rich snobs have built around themselves. John and Esther remain unaffected by the world outside as the family goes to La Fontaine, a fancy restaurant in the city, to enjoy dinner. It doesn’t take long for a group of hotel staffers to notice the family, although to them the poor working class remains invisible. Which is the reason why during the return trip to the villa, when a drunk John comes close to running over a girl, Teodora, Esther is not able to recognize the hotel attendant despite coming across her in the hotel restroom. To Esther, she was just a faceless worker whom she treated like a waste disposal —but from that very moment, Teodora had targeted the family. With the help of one of the staffers, Teodora injured herself and faked the accident. While John and the kids wanted to take Teodora to the hospital, fearing an unnecessary legal hassle, Esther instead proposed the idea of taking Teodora home to tend to her. Previously, one of the staffers had mentioned during a conversation that the family was not rich enough—and the reason becomes clear as daylight in this context; they aren’t rich enough to avoid the legal troubles that’d come with hit-and-run, drunken driving cases. To ensure that Teodora doesn’t inform the authorities about the accident, Esther leaves a couple hundred bucks in her room as a bribe after patching her up, and the next morning—the parents breathe a sigh of relief to see her already gone. 

How Did Teodora Become a Member of the Family?

However, Teodora returns to the villa as she mentions that she has been fired from her job due to hygiene concerns (something rich snobs are in general really keen about), and the money offered by the family isn’t enough for her to get by. She requests to be employed as the housekeeper of the villa until she manages to regain her footing, and even though John tries to hush her up by bribing her more, Esther agrees to hire her to avoid further troubles. As if it wasn’t apparent earlier that Teodora and her colleagues have their own agenda, during her stay at the villa, she slowly starts to work her way into the circle of trust of each of the family members. 

Teodora is quick to recognize the insecurities and vulnerabilities of each of the members of this dysfunctional family. Philipp, the elder child, feels a sense of self-worth by pretending to sympathize with the poor and wants to feel important. As Teodora spends time with him, Philipp gets infatuated with her easily. John is an open book, an easygoing, lucky, clueless buffoon who feels pressured by his more successful wife, especially now that his own career is in flames – and needs his bruised ego to be inflated. Teodora allows him a chance to mansplain, feigns giving him the importance he thinks he deserves as the man of the family, and along with a sexually charged fig-eating imagery—it doesn’t take long for John to put down his guard, if he had one in the first place to be honest. Alba, the youngest member of the family who takes after her mother, is a hard nut to crack. She doesn’t trust Teodora and remains aware of her deceit. However, Teodora manages to alienate the girl from the rest of the family, especially from Esther, by tricking her. Teodora uses the curiosity of Alba’s young mind—teaching her French curse words to address key figures from “Harry Potter” like Wormtail, Vernon Dursley, and Dolores Umbridge, teaching her a lighter trick—basically activities that grab a child’s attention. As the rest of the family remains busy in their own affairs, unknowingly, Alba becomes dependent on Teodora.

The otherwise aloof matriarch, Esther, becomes an easy puzzle to solve for Teodora once she realizes this workaholic woman craves personal freedom—away from familial responsibilities and drudgeries. Teodora gets the perfect opportunity to draw Esther’s mind elsewhere after she gets into a heated argument with John after learning about his dwindling career. John’s superior, Aki, and his wife, Cora, with whom John was secretly having an affair, visited the villa, and in the midst of conversation, Esther got to know about John’s work-related problems. As Aki pays a visit once more, following John repeatedly ignoring her calls, Esther finally confronts her husband about the situation, and John causes a scene. Teodora takes Esther to a party, allows her a much-needed chance to unravel, and fixes her up with one of her colleagues, Lucien—who feigns growing feelings for her. Esther was too busy enjoying her freedom after what seemed to be a lifetime to notice something fishy was going on all along. Gradually, every member of the family has started trusting Teodora blindly, enough to let her random stranger friends enter the villa and stay as they please. 

What Happened To Alba And Philipp?

On the other hand, Esther decides to live her life to the fullest with her new lover, Lucien, and abandons her family for the time being—a piece of news which Cora delivers to the family. In the absence of Esther, Cora and John rekindle their affair, as it becomes apparent whatever familial bond was there no longer exists. Philipp leaves the villa for a while after getting ashamed for acting like a peeping tom and getting caught by Teodora while sneakily taking a picture of her. 

Esther finally figures out something troubling has been brewing all the while as she goes with Lucien to attend one of his friend’s birthday parties. It is only too late that she realizes that she is quite literally a vital part of the cuisine after recognizing the hotel staffers who are seen devouring human meat. Esther had noticed packaged human meat at Lucien’s rundown apartment as well but hadn’t suspected anything foul. At present, Teodora stops Esther from leaving the party and delivers a very on-the-nose lecture about how she has breached their upper-class barrier all along by pretending to be an innocent housekeeper, thereby earning their trust to strike them at their most vulnerable situation. Esther meets a gruesome end as the staffers, with a ravenous gaze in their eyes, literally ‘eat the rich’ to satiate their hunger. John and Cora meet the same fate as Teodora and her band of cannibal staffers return to the villa. 

In Delicious’ ending, an unassuming Philipp returns to the villa late at night, sees strangers sleeping at the poolside, and sees his sister, Alba, sleeping peacefully with Teodora by her side. Without suspecting anything at all, Philipp makes his way to the dining area to satiate his hunger with a steak lying around in the kitchen—which is, at this point, needless to say, prepared from either of his parents. Philipp might have figured out what’s going on as he hungrily gobbles down the meat; he spits out an engagement ring, which belonged to Esther, as shown previously in the movie. Whether or not Philipp can do something about it remains unknown, as the movie ends with Teodora and her gang riding down the road on their motorcycles. Teodora has taken Alba along with her, and it remains unknown whether the little girl will turn out to be someone like them, or if she too will meet a harrowing fate like that of her parents. Teodora and the staffers of the hotel have a grudge against the apathetic privileged class, whom they prey upon. But a childlike Alba has nothing to do with the persecution the grown-ups subject others to, so there might be a chance that she gets spared—and grows up to be a devourer of the class of people she too belonged to. The not-so-shocking end felt extremely out of touch with reality and regressive, as I am not sure showing the poor as cunning cannibal savages serves any form of meaningful message in this context.

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