Director: Nicholas Tomnay
Trading a failing restaurant for a friend's lavish hideaway sounds like a fresh start — until the price of that life becomes clear in What You Wish For, a 2023 thriller from Nicholas Tomnay.
What is What You Wish For about?
Ryan, a chef buried in gambling debt, arrives at the remote Latin American estate of an old culinary-school friend expecting a favor and a change of scenery. Instead he finds a host whose wealth seems to come from something darker than a great menu, and a household staff who know far more than they let on. Once circumstances force Ryan to step into his friend's shoes for a single high-stakes dinner service, he learns exactly what that lifestyle actually costs the people who provide it. What follows twists a food-world setting into a survival story, as Ryan tries to protect himself without becoming just another course on the estate's menu of favors owed.
Cast & crew
Nick Stahl anchors the film as Ryan, with Tamsin Topolski, Randy Vasquez, Penelope Mitchell, Brian Groh, and Juan Carlos Messier filling out the estate's staff and guests, giving the isolated setting a rotating cast of characters whose motives keep shifting.
Context & significance
Shot on location in Colombia, What You Wish For folds culinary detail into a slow-burn thriller, using the ritual of an elaborate dinner as the backdrop for something closer to a horror premise. Director Nicholas Tomnay, previously known for shorter genre work, builds the film around the gap between how the wealthy appear to live and what actually sustains that lifestyle. It premiered in 2023 as part of a broader run of food-adjacent thrillers that use fine dining as a lens for class and desperation.
Where & how to watch
What You Wish For is available on K-Time with a Persian dub and Persian subtitles, and the platform's Farsi-language interface makes browsing and playback straightforward for Persian-speaking viewers. This page is free to read without an account; watching the film itself requires a free K-Time login.