Dinner in America

Always a joy when low expectations yield joyous results. This is simply wonderful. Something to offend everyone. A junkie arsonist punk singer trashes a bunch of people's lives, encounters a socially stunted chick being bullied, wants to use her for his own ends, slowly discovers she is more like him than he realises and they fall in love. Zero sentimental crap and a bizarre happy ending.

This is close to zero budget and with a cast of no names. No requirement for explosions or car crashes. Well written script with real characters. Dripping with vicious sarcasm. Wonderful. More please. I loved this so much.

It's these little indie movies that restore my faith in cinema. I'm sort of guy that trawls IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes looking for new movies, but there are always ones that fly under the radar. Looking at this movie being over 4 years old now and only having over 5000 ratings on IMDB is quite sad. No doubt it will gather an audience over the years, but someone should release it on a streaming platform or something to get it more exposure. Its basically a James Dean for the 2020's, but much funnier. Although rough on the outside it's actually a feel good movie. Was very impressed with the direction and the 2 main lead's. To be honest, thought they were better performances than those who just won Oscars this year.

A modern day version of Badlands or True Romance (without the killing), the Ben Stiller produced indie Dinner in America features two outcasts of society banding together through a chance encounter as Kyle Gallner's feisty punk rocker Simon and Emily Skegg's awkward recently fired retail worker and music super-fan Patty find solace in one another's company in the midst of the American mid-west.

A hit at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival where it was nominated for the covetous Grand Jury Prize and a key player at other film festival's over the last few years, Dinner is an impressive feature from director Adam Rehmeier who manages to give his film heart and soul amongst its pitch black showings of dark humor and bubbling tension that appears set to give our two main characters a journey that can only end in way in which they attack life with a fearless recklessness that society has forced them to undertake.

Key to the films success as a darkly in tune exploration of lost souls roaming the increasingly unhinged surrounds of the American working class system is the performances of Gallner and Skeggs, who are both likely to benefit greatly from Dinner finally being available to a mass audience as their turns here suggest both actors are sure to be staple of the industry in the years yet to come should they stay as committed to their craft as they are here.

Full of rage and often misguided energy but also a charisma that is hard to ignore, Gallner does impressive work as the not always likeable but hard to hate Simon while Skegg's is beautifully vulnerable as Patty who starts to grow into a whole different version of herself once Simon enters her life and allows her to be the person she was always supposed to be, even if the landscape and people around her might not be as ready to accept the new version her being.

In many ways Dinner is a slight film, there's no big payoffs or revelations here and for the most part the film plays entirely off the work of its two leads but for anyone that connects to these two lost souls that find acceptance and meaning in one another, Dinner will provide a modern day gun-free Bonnie and Clyde that is fuelled by a wicked sense of humor and desire to stick it to the man.

Final Say -

A dark and sometimes tricky dramedy that won't strike a chord with everyone, Dinner in America is a noteworthy independent offering with two of the more intriguing main duos of recent memory, making this character driven escapade worth seeking out.

3 1/2 Nintendo 64 consoles out of 5

For more reviews check out Jordan and Eddie (The Movie Guys)

I tuned in for Kyle, who I have seen and liked in other things. The first half of this movie had me squirming, with the opening scene being particularly hard to watch; if you're squeamish you may want to avert your eyes. Also there is a LOT of profanity. It was hard for me to see all the ill-treatment that Patty endures in her daily life (what's in all those pill boxes anyway?) I thought, do I really need to see more of this? But by the halfway point I was thoroughly invested. The "dinner in America" scenes around the family table were a hoot-did anybody recognize their own childhood here? (Take it down a notch!) Throw Simon in the mix and the whole household is upended! But a touching tenderness develops when Patty and Simon discover their hidden relationship with each other. I feel like Patty could have ditched her meds after that: Simon is her new feel-good, and it's nice to see Patty shine like that.

This movie tries to do everything it can to make the audience want to switch off in the first part. It presents you with a terrible, manipulative person who'd be a danger to anybody getting close to him, and then puts him on a collision course with someone you instinctively want to protect from him.

You're just going to have to trust me that there's more that needs to unfold. Beautiful things are going to happen. It's messy and trashy, and it needs to be. You'll even end up feeling a little bit bad for having those protective feelings at first, which is going to feel unthinkable when you're in the early stages of the story. Learning what Patty wants and seeing her find it is an absolute joy.

It's a great film with some surprisingly subtle things to say about freedom and what it means to invent yourself.