The Dinner

Would the movie be a dark comedy? a domestic drama? A murder mystery?

Apparently, the director couldn't make up his mind. Instead, he gave us a dinner party with characters so smug, self-absorbed and repulsive that, until the actual crime was revealed, I thought the movie was a dark comedy version of "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie."

This movie is full of great actors, a rich premise and an emotionally provocative moral question about how far we would go to protect those we love. Unfortunately, it takes two hours to raise the question, and, by then, I detested all the characters do much that I didn't care what the answer was.

Apparently, neither did the director,

Richard Gere had one expression and broods through the entire film. Laura Linney's character was completely devoted to a completely unlovable character. None of the relationships seemed believable. There could have been a big payoff with any number of exquisite conclusions to this film, but the ending to this film was singularly & almost devastatingly unsatisfying.

The premiere gave way to a little scandal here, as the original writer of the novel bluntly refused to attend the reception afterwards, citing how bad the movie was and strayed from his intentions, finding it too moralistic as he saw it as an immorality tale; and themed too much around violence and mental illness.

This is however a well-directed movie by Moverman that stands on its own and the whole feud is a classic case of writer dissatisfaction with the liberties a director has taken with the material, remember King for The Shining or Kundera for The Unbearable Lightness of Being. So instead of playing the blunt drama queen the writer could have respected the interpretation, but they almost never do being in love with their own material.

This is well-directed by hiding the story like Haneke often does, next to putting you multiple times on the wrong track where the movie is heading. The movie works by playing to fundamental human psychological weaknesses the characters show in observing and interpreting information, and working that into the script so the viewers make the same mistakes. Clever. Sometimes however, the director is too much in love with his script, with overlong sequences in Gettysburg (we get the picture after ten seconds, but it draws out for minutes) and history lessons by Coogan as a teacher. Next to this it has several weakness in editing, the cinematography is also average, and the dark humor often falls flat.

Gere, Coogan and especially Linney give excellent performances, contributing to the unsettling effect the movie ultimately has.

Yes, it is a morality tale, but I disagree with the general view currently established that this is preachy, after all the ending is open and the moral dilemma is anchored in personal strife and views on solving these dilemmas, referring back to several schools in ethics like teleology, deontology and utilitarianism.

This is a film adaptation of a really quite excellent book - sorry to say that the film did not meet expectations at all. It was disjointed, had no conclusion and was mostly just plain muddled.

The only positives are that it was well acted and shot nicely.

I'm unsure what the screenwriter was doing really though - to mash an excellent book up that way and regurgitate it into this mess seems a travesty.

A waste of time and effort and talent!

Movies are almost never as good as the book so nobody needs to hear that fact of life over and over again so please stop. The casting for this film was excellent as was the decadence portrayed through "food art", interior decor, and a virtual army of overly attentive wait staff. It burned a little too slow for my taste in the beginning but picked up once it became clear that the kids had done something awful. I don't know if the story was designed to compel viewers to do a complete180 in terms of liking or disliking characters by the time it ended but it did so for me. By the end of it my opinions had flipped. Richard Gere's crisis of conscience was a bit of a surprise to me and I felt enough pity for Paul by the end of it to excuse his general contempt for the entire human race. Lord knows I feel that way sometimes. The two wives morphed into self serving piranhas. Without giving away spoilers they both had to fight really hard to get a seat at the table (pun intended...I think). Sometimes really good people go on self absorbed power trips when they realize that their relentless drive to keep fighting and to only focus on themselves was the only reason they were able to overcome a really bad past situation. It isn't too far fetched to to assume that some folks opt to stay in that battleship mode to avoid having to go through more trauma. Both wives made it crystal clear that the whole world can burn except for family and even then there may be some smoke damage. Their contempt for the homeless and constantly repeating that it was just an accident was nauseating so they both played their roles extremely well and nobody should dog this movie for that.

There wasn't an end but that's sort of the point. Life is a messy sequence of good and bad experiences and then you die...fin. Nonetheless, sudden endings in movies is nothing new and now just comes across as a little bit lazy. I gave this an extra star for the culinary aspects. If you're not already well versed in the subject I recommend turning subtitles on to catch the correct spellings of what was prepared for each course. I rolled my eyes when the host gushed over the "oh so controversial" cheese banned by the FDA with no explanation given by him. I stand corrected as it turns out that it's a French cheese that purposely introduces "cheese mites" to facilitate a chemical process that gives the rind a distinct taste and texture.