The Dinner

2017
R
2h

IMDb RATING

4.5/10

10K

YOUR RATING

Richard Gere, Laura Linney, Steve Coogan, and Rebecca Hall in The Dinner (2017)

A psychological thriller about a fierce showdown between two couples during the course of an ornately prepared meal at a fancy restaurant.

Play trailer2:20

1 Video

36 Photos

Crime Drama Thriller

Two sets of wealthy parents meet for dinner to decide what to do about a crime their sons have committed.Two sets of wealthy parents meet for dinner to decide what to do about a crime their sons have committed.Two sets of wealthy parents meet for dinner to decide what to do about a crime their sons have committed.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

4.5/10

10K

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

Awards
- 1 win & 2 nominations total

Videos1

Trailer 2:20

Official Trailer

Photos36

+ 28

User reviews253

4.510.1K

Featured reviews

2reviewerartb

A waste of time and effort and talent! - Awful film of an excellent book

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!

5aarpcats

What would happen if the children of wealthy, neurotic and self centered Woody Allen characters committed a horrible crime.

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,

4janekreisman

Epic Waste of an Epic Cast

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.

3nerijus-kaunas

No ending?!

Great actors. But the movie is so rubbish. Dropping from one plot to another. Dragging and dragging and leaving you without ending at all

4jessupj-08184

Ending was a complete joke

I watch a lot of movies so I can understand, appreciate, and even enjoy open endings that still leave a lot of questions. However, this movie had a clear resolution it was approaching and yet, even though the movie is 2 hours long, it seemingly arbitrarily stops at the end of the second act, completely leaving out the 3rd act.

The rest of the movie was well made except for a few flash back moments that dragged on way too long and for no good reason. I was engaged and wanting to see the answer to the central question, but the ending was so bad I came away physically angry feeling like I just wasted 2 hours. I will note I made this review the day after so I could meditate on the movie and be in a calm emotional state when writing this review.

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Trivia
The author of the book 'The Dinner', Herman Koch, walked away from the European premiere in Berlin on February 10, 2017. He did not wish to stay for the after-party, nor talk to the director, cast members or audience. The reason was that he did not like the movie at all, mostly for the script which he thought had transferred his cynical story into a moral tale. Of the three movies made from his book, "this one is easily the worst", Koch said to Dutch newspaper NRC (Feb 11, 2017). "That after-party would have been rather awkward. What would I have done? Shake hands with everybody and tell them I hated their movie?" Koch disliked the movie's reference to themes like American violence and the stigma of mental illness. "That 'didactical' tone, isn't it killing?", Koch said.