My Dinner with Andre
Composite Score: 81.83
Starring: Andre Gregory, Wallace Shawn, Jean Lenauer, and Roy Butler
Director: Louis Malle
Writers: Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory
Genres: Comedy, Drama, Dialogue
MPAA Rating: PG
Box Office: $5,073 worldwide
Why should you Watch This Film?
My Dinner with Andre is a semi-fictionalized dialogue between Andre Gregory and Wallace Shawn over dinner at a nice restaurant. At the time, both men had been working in the New York theatre scene and were experiencing different types of removal from work – Gregory voluntarily and Shawn as a writer between gigs. Over the course of a little under two hours, the men discuss Gregory’s decision to leave the theatre, the events leading up to that decision, and ultimately the reasons that he has for becoming so jaded with theatre, which leads to a debate between the two men over the state of modern entertainment, the world, and humanity as a whole. What starts out as a simple dinner between two men trying to convince one another of new viewpoints evolves into a commentary for the audience on the way that we interact with and view other humans and the world. It is a fascinating piece of film, the like of which is rarely seen.
Why shouldn’t you Watch This Film?
This film is pure dialogue, and heady dialogue at that. As such, it feels at times like sitting through a rather engrossing college lecture between two highly capable and educated professors. That does not necessarily set the stage for the world’s most engrossing film, however. It works well as a commentary, a dialogue, and an experimental/experiential film, but not necessarily the peak of entertainment. For many members of the audience, much of what is being discussed has the potential to go over their heads. Also, the dialogue itself takes a while getting to anything resembling a cohesive message, and even then, parts of the dialogue fail to contribute much to that message once it arrives. While I thoroughly enjoy the film’s structure, it definitely will not be everyone’s cup of tea.
So wait, why should you Watch This Film?
Andre Gregory is a frustratingly compelling storyteller, and this shows through in the film’s second act particularly, as he discusses the various events that led to his decision to step back from the theatre. Each anecdote is artfully told in detail and with a flow that feels like a stream of consciousness. The different episodes that led to Gregory’s decision contain outlandish characters and events that make the audience unable to do anything but just listen and, perhaps, occasionally pause to do a deeper dive on whatever it is that he is talking about. These stories invite the audience to dive deeper and challenge them to engage with the world in new ways, accomplishing some of the dialogue’s goals in so doing.
Ultimately, the My Dinner with Andre’s commentary on the state of humanity and the world, and particularly Western civilization, ends up ringing even truer in a modern context. The critique of complacency and fear of feeling/experiencing anything other than comfort continues to be a relevant commentary on the world since the early 1980s. Wallace Shawn’s response also continues to resonate – that certain levels of comfort are good and in fact necessary to appreciate life and its complexities. The resounding message of the film’s dialogue, then, also becomes a highly relevant truth – that we need to truly see one another and not just look for what is comfortable or what we want to see, and only then, when we become aware of discomfort and the need for something to be done about it, can we really be living full lives.
Artful storytelling on the part of Andre Gregory and an increasingly relevant overall message help make the seemingly simple and potentially dull dialogue of My Dinner with Andre into a Great Film. The film’s occasionally didactic turns ultimately help to create a piece of media that is consistently worth consuming time and again. This one is currently streaming on HBO Max if you are interested in checking it out, and I certainly recommend doing so.