The Dinner After

I never expected to see a film without faults, but if those involved can translate this twelve minutes of perfection into a feature-length piece, it will be an all-time great.

A family dinner slowly (well, slowly for a short) becomes something very different. The sense of unease builds as inexorably as watching the child in Spielberg's Poltergeist (1982) looking for the clown - we know it won't end well, but there is nothing we can do.

The cast are uniformly excellent, and must have had fun making it as they fully inhabit their characters. Tonal shifts are subtle but brutal; seemingly light, right up until they strike home.

Honestly, I never expected to see a perfect film but this is the closest I have ever come. Truly harrowing.

Plot

A guilt-stricken Angela, visits her parents for what at first seems to be a routine family dinner, only for a painful truth to bubble to the surface, descending the evening into a nightmare.

Cast

Unfamiliar with anybody involved.

Verdict

For the majority of The Dinner After it's presented alike many shorts and sadly a lot of features, namely a lot of random imagery and very little sense. Thankfully the end does explain everything and turns confusion into coherence and a surprising amount of depth but by that points it's simply too late.

You see the twist is great, it's impactful and it resulted in me rating it higher than originally intended however the journey there is a lackluster mess that lacks any form of entertainment value.

If the journey there had been done better this could have been a great little short, alas the execution wasn't up to par.

Rants

I'm a vegetarian, I felt her frustration but damn that chicken didn't half took tantalizing! I've not eaten meat in about a year and a half and I hear it whispering to me! Friday night it was pork scratchings, watching this it was chicken! How do people do this!?

Breakdown

Great twist Weak visuals Poor execution of a great story.

Probably the slow Dinner? Nope that is not what I mean with my summary headline - no pun intended, of course you know what I am talking about. And the daughter who is visiting her parents for dinner (the title of sorts I know) has some things to deal with ... past always comes to haunt us, if we did not deal with it properly.

The inciting incident is quite the horrific one - and the (supposed) safety of ones parents home and the familiarity of a dinner seem perfect to get back into regular life ... but as you can imagine things do not always work exactly as planned ... and same is true for this one here. Good acting and script - also well edited.