--- title: "Eating Raoul" year: 1982 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/eating-raoul" fi1m_score: 75 critics_score: 73 critics_reviews: 7 published: "2026-09-16T13:54:19.571630+00:00" updated: "2026-09-16T13:54:50.684253+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Eating Raoul (1982) Directed by Paul Bartel · 1h 27m · MPA R · Comedy, Crime **Fi1m score: 75** · Critics 73 from 7 reviews *In a sentence:* We would not complain about the soup in a restaurant financed by murder > Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov make this dry crime comedy worth an evening. Their composure is reliably funny, although the film grows too comfortable repeating its central joke. ## Synopsis Paul Bland (Paul Bartel), Mary Bland (Mary Woronov) and Raoul Mendoza (Robert Beltran) inhabit 1980s Los Angeles. Paul and Mary want to open a restaurant, but they need money. Disgusted by the sexual behaviour around them, the couple find a way to make their disapproval pay: killing swingers to finance the business. Their plan places murder among the practical demands of becoming restaurateurs. They continue to think of themselves as respectable people, even as their pursuit of a restaurant gives them reasons to behave otherwise. ## Review *Eating Raoul* is a good, dry crime comedy with a simple limitation: it finds one excellent joke and grows comfortable repeating it. Paul Bartel, directing a script written with Richard Blackburn, gives Paul Bland and Mary Bland a perfectly ordinary wish to run a restaurant. Their willingness to finance it through murder scarcely disturbs their sense of being decent people. The film’s most reliable pleasure is watching that confidence survive behaviour which ought to make even the proprietors reconsider. Paul Bartel plays Paul Bland with an offended propriety that makes other people’s appetites seem like a personal inconvenience. Mary Woronov, as Mary Bland, is an essential partner: the pair’s composure keeps the comedy from becoming an exhibition of actors enjoying their own outrageousness. We laughed at how easily their restaurant scheme began to sound reasonable. The performances give the killing the practical weight of a financing problem, and that calmness is what got us. The script is particularly alert to how wanting a business can make almost any behaviour seem industrious. The restaurant remains a recognisable, modest ambition, so the couple never need to think of themselves as villains. Their disgust at other people’s sexual appetites gives them a further excuse. Paul Bartel and Richard Blackburn make those appetites so tiresome, though, that we are scarcely asked to question the couple’s judgement of their targets. Gary Thieltges’s cinematography gives the comedy a flat, unceremonious look which suits the straight faces. Robert Schulenberg’s production design keeps it close to the ordinary scale of a domestic comedy, rather than announcing every piece of bad taste. That is a useful decision: exaggerated pictures would leave the actors with nowhere to go. The lack of visual fuss also gives us time to notice how little the couple’s fastidiousness interferes with what they are prepared to do. Alan Toomayan’s editing allows that deadpan manner room to work, though the relaxed pace occasionally becomes an excuse to linger over a joke already understood. Arlon Ober supplies the music; the performers’ delivery remains the stronger guide to when we should laugh. The restraint is welcome because this material hardly needs additional encouragement to be peculiar. Sometimes a sequence needs a little more speed, however, and the film keeps moving at the same pace. The crime-comedy setting allows Paul Bartel to test how far the couple’s self-respect will stretch. Their composure keeps inviting us back after behaviour that would end our sympathy in a more realistic film. Much of the fun lies in accepting their peculiar rules for a while. Anyone expecting the premise to produce sustained revulsion should adjust their expectations. At 87 minutes, *Eating Raoul* does not require an enormous tolerance for its habits, although its mild delivery will not suit everyone attracted by the premise. It can be sick without making us feel especially uncomfortable, which limits how far the satire reaches. We would still recommend it to anyone who enjoys a black comedy performed with a straight face. Give it an evening when criminal ingenuity sounds more appealing than moral improvement. *Fi1m score 75, published 16 September 2026.* ## What the critics say Most critics respond warmly to Eating Raoul, with praise clustering around its straight-faced handling of sex, food and murder. The reviews find Paul Bartel’s restrained comic approach well suited to the outrageous premise: a prim couple financing their restaurant dream through killing. His prissy performance, the cast’s charm and the contrast between sick jokes and gentle sitcom manners draw approval, while the satire of middle-class conformity and Southern California sexual culture gives the comedy further bite. The spread is fairly narrow, with the main difference concerning how much comic energy that restraint supplies. Empire finds the sick gags laugh-out-loud funny, while The New York Times values a flat, pop-art style that remains gently amusing rather than riotous. RogerEbert.com supplies the sole mixed assessment: it finds the film mostly clever and funny, but too laid-back and whimsical to push its outrageous material far enough. ### Reviews we read (7) - **The AV Club**, Keith Phipps (B+): The critic praises the film's sly satire of middle-class conformity and the sexual revolution in 1980s LA, highlighting its gleeful dark comedy and inspiration from Corman B-movies and British comedies. It notes the consequence-free world and how the Blands' actions target the debauched. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/eating-raoul-1798174429) - **Empire**, Kim Newman (80/100, inferred): The critic praises this black comedy about a repressed couple who turn to murder to fund their restaurant dream. The film's perverse humour succeeds thanks to the director's prissy delicacy in performance and direction, along with its charming cast and laugh-out-loud sick gags. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/eating-raoul-review/) - **Slant Magazine**, Joseph Jon Lanthier (70/100, inferred): The critic lauds the film's skewed logic and egalitarian hate in its satire of Southern California stereotypes, noting its prescience regarding AIDS and repulsion at flesh, while appreciating the restoration and extras. [Read](https://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/eating-raoul/) - **The New York Times**, Vincent Canby (70/100, inferred): Canby calls it a very funny, sensitive comedy about a prissy couple who murder sex-crazed perverts to fund their restaurant dream, praising its flat, pop-art comic style that stays gently amusing rather than riotous. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/1982/09/25/movies/eating-raoul-comedy-with-an-offbeat-couple.html) - **Time Out**, PT (70/100, inferred): The film is a delightful blackly comic collision of sex, food and murder from Paul Bartel. It stands out for its straight-faced style contrasting sick joke frenetics with a gentle sitcom sensibility. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/eating-raoul) - **Variety**, Variety Staff (70/100, inferred): The review praises Bartel’s tongue-in-cheek approach for taking the outrageous story of the Blands’ murderous scheme to ridiculous extremes while remaining genuinely funny and successfully telling the perverse tale. [Read](https://variety.com/1981/film/reviews/eating-raoul-1200425226/) - **RogerEbert.com**, Roger Ebert (65/100, inferred): Ebert finds the deadpan black comedy about a prim couple who kill swingers for money mostly clever and funny in its matter-of-fact style, but too laid-back and whimsical to reach inspired excesses. [Read](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/eating-raoul-1982) ## Details - **Director:** Paul Bartel - **Director:** Paul Bartel - **Writer:** Richard Blackburn, Paul Bartel - **Cinematography:** Gary Thieltges - **Editor:** Alan Toomayan - **Music:** Arlon Ober - **Production design:** Robert Schulenberg - **Producer:** Anne Kimmel - **Cast:** Paul Bartel as Paul Bland; Mary Woronov as Mary Bland; Robert Beltran as Raoul Mendoza; Susan Saiger as Doris the Dominatrix / Nurse Sally Cummings; Richard Paul as Mr. Cray; John Shearin as Mr. Baker; Darcy Pulliam as Nurse Sheila; Garry Goodrow as Drunk Swinger - **Runtime:** 1h 27m - **Certificate (MPA):** R - **Release (the US):** 1 October 1982 - **Genres:** Comedy, Crime - **Budget:** $350,000 ## Where to watch in the US - HBO Max: streaming, leaving 2026-09-30 - Tubi: free, hd, leaving 2026-10-06 - Amazon Prime Video: add-on - The Roku Channel: add-on, hd - Hulu: add-on, hd - Amazon Prime Video: rent $3.99, hd - Apple TV: rent $3.99, hd - Apple TV: buy $14.99, hd - Amazon Prime Video: buy $14.99, hd *Checked 2026-09-16.* Also available in: CA, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *The Ladykillers* (1955): Criminal ambition meets domestic propriety, with more pressure on the criminals’ ingenuity. - *A New Leaf* (1971): Financial desperation and exquisite snobbery make an awkward foundation for romance. - *Delicatessen* (1991), Fi1m 83: Food, money and appalling behaviour share another small community with peculiar household arrangements. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/delicatessen.md) - *Serial Mom* (1994): Respectable housekeeping extends to murder, with less restraint and considerably more shouting. - *The Quiet Family* (1998): A family business discovers how quickly practical solutions can become criminal habits. --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/eating-raoul