20/02/2025 - BERLINALE 2025: Nele Mueller-Stöfen’s film is an unsettling thriller with a social bent, which doesn't fully succeed in shocking its audience

Fahri Yardim, Carla Díaz and Valerie Pachner in Delicious

Take a family – possibly a very rich one. Add an external element – someone entering the family dynamic and bringing change, not necessarily for the better. Maybe a young woman. Strange things start happening. Why could that be?

This is the premise of the Berlinale Panorama title Delicious [+see also:
trailer
interview: Nele Mueller-Stöfen
film profile], in which mother Esther (Valerie Pachner), father John (Fahri Yardim) and their two children, Alba (Naila Schuberth) and Philipp (Caspar Hoffmann), spend their summer holidays at their villa in Southern France. There, they accidentally encounter Teodora (Carla Díaz), whom they take on as a household help after injuring her in a minor car accident. The young woman’s presence soon shakes up what turns out to be an already fragile family foundation – one often focused solely on material and ephemeral happiness.

A blend of familiar settings, including M Night Shyamalan’s TV series Servant, Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite and Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Theorem – the latter explicitly cited as an inspiration by first-time feature director Nele Mueller-Stöfen – the film is set to captivate Netflix audiences worldwide upon its release on 7 March. Delicious has all of the ingredients necessary for perfectly crafted mainstream success: a strong cast, stunning production design and cinematography, and a story that will keep viewers talking long after the credits roll. The sound design by Noemi Hampel is also worth mentioning for its effectiveness, as it's arguably one of the film’s strongest elements, along with the overall quality of the performances.

The movie’s social themes feel both fresh and timeless, approached from a perspective that will certainly earn Mueller-Stöfen praise. However, upon closer inspection, something doesn’t quite click. For some viewers, the film may feel a tad too predictable or, more precisely, underexplored at certain moments. While the story is generally well structured, Delicious plays it too safe, missing opportunities to take creative risks – risks it could have easily afforded, given its budget, technical execution and thematic potential. As a result, the sense of shock that the film might have provoked is somewhat watered down – which is at once refreshing (as it avoids manipulative narrative strategies) and disappointing.

Some choices feel well-rounded and logical, while others could have benefited from sharper writing, which might have helped avoid certain clichés in character development and plot progression. On a positive note, the film’s refusal to pass judgement on its characters is an interesting approach; however, this sometimes leads to a feeling of superficiality and a lack of true character study, making the protagonists appear overly one-dimensional.

Ultimately, Delicious seems to cater more to a general audience than a specialised, arthouse one. The film’s inclination towards a more commercial style is likely the reason it fails to fully convince. Nevertheless, despite its occasional naivety, which makes it feel closer to a TV production than a Berlinale-worthy film on too many occasions, it is bound to generate buzz and attract viewers thanks to its peculiar subject matter, and is likely to become a major success on the US platform once released.

Delicious was produced by Berlin-based Komplizen Film and is sold worldwide by Netflix.