This operatic film structured on a dinner from aperitif through digestif will take you on a morality ride close to Dante’s Inferno. Terrifically acted, scripted and choreographed from the 2009 Dutch novel, ” The Dinner” by Herman Koch, was first translated in English in 2012. The film, directed by Oren Moverman, centers on psychopathic teens, and it ignites all 311 pages of Koch’s psychological thriller cum satire.
The film begins with a cracking sound, like a glass slowly splintering. Images of plated food, cemetery graves, more plated food, and delinquent teenaged boys in a pool hall set up an outline of sorts. We see Steve Coogan looking down from a second story porch, and he becomes an Oscar contender with his portrayal of a mentally disturbed former history teacher with a tons of emotional baggage.
While the upscale restaurant server overly explains the “crayfish dressed in a vinaigrette of tarragon and baby green onions and chanterelles”, Paul looks at the small portions and chides ” drizzle of famine”.
At first, we are inclined to identify with Coogan’s Paul Lohman. His brother Stan is a charmer, a Senaor, who portrays himself as a man of the people~ only better! He is Paul’s older, more successful brother, and a hard act to follow. Paul’s bitter resentment and ascerbic tongue soon becomes more than gentle mockery. This is not a healthy man.
Paul’s brother Stan has parlayed a table at a restaurant with a six to eight month waiting list. It is here that the two with their current wives are to hash out what to do about their 16-year-old sons and the horrifying act they have committed. There is a manhunt for the evil-doers, but the cousins remain unidentified. Who knows what, and who does what becomes the film’s central focus.
Director and writer Oren Moverman’s words are as caustically modern and brutal as any put to screen. The themes of delusion and self-interest hold a warning here. Inchoate prejudice and class priviledge rise to the surface. Mental health and family negotiations are sub-themes. This is a film which may be better than the book in guiding the viewer to disgust and outrage. Ironically, the privileged Senator Lohman, played remarkably by Richard Gere may be the only moral person in the bunch.
Marketed with the come-on, “How far would you go to protect your child?” “The Dinner” delves into the terrain of deviant children and their aftermath. Told in flashback and with unreliable narration, this doesn’t feel like an American film. Artful frames of mind-crazed visuals are both starkly colored and sometimes muted and triple-focused. If you haven’t read the book, you will have to work here. Listen carefully to the well-paced script, and beware of the crazy step-moms. Laura Linney and Rebecca Hall will chill your blood as much as their callous killer stepsons do. I found “The Dinner” an art film with deplorable characters creating a cinematic tension that is not to be missed.
When the words, ” the system will fail them, we won’t” , and ” you are making someone else’s tragedy ours” are spoken, we feel like we understand what is wrong with the world. The final scene with the family members all in cell phone chorus throws ” The Dinner” into a farce for the twenty-first century.
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