Critic Reviews

Without straining to make an obvious point, Mr. Tomnay uses black comedy and shocking splatters of gore to tweak the class of jaded plutocrats who are as asset-rich as they are morals-poor.

What You Wish For is everything you could wish for in a well-lit plunge into the abyss. The script’s condemnation of the class system is much more potent than the overrated, sneering misfire The Menu.

Stahl’s acting has always had a quiet power, communicating roiling emotional distress under an often vaguely menacing stillness. This gives a fresh perspective to Ryan’s eventual impotence as he negotiates his new identity.

Writer-director Nicholas Tomnay knows how to make maximum use of plot twists that keep an audience on its toes, and Nick Stahl is a skillful master of how to move the gore with exactly the right pace to exude charm in spite of his character’s ongoing toxicity.

What You Wish For posits that the cycle of working for an evil, self-righteous entity never stops.

Filmmaker Nicholas Tomnay’s sophomore feature percolates with atmospheric dread and austerity, but only superficially explores the twisted amorality of the 1% and those who service their whims. While not always successful in cooking up tantalizing commentary on human behavior, it offers a decent helping of Hitchcockian intrigue.

Though it assembles some of the right ingredients before laying them out before you, it never proceeds to arrange them in any particularly interesting or entertaining way.