My Dinner with Andre
2.5/4
Starring: Wallace Shawn, Andre Gregory
How does one begin to review "My Dinner with Andre"? For one thing, by clearly stating that it is not a normal film. The 1981 arthouse smash has little of what we expect from a traditional movie. Save for two extremely short book-ending sequences, the film takes place entirely at a restaurant and almost always between two characters, Wally Shawn and Andre Gregory.
Wally Shawn (Shawn) is a struggling playwright and actor who is meeting an old friend: his mentor, Andre Gregory (Gregory). They were very close, but a few years ago, Andre fell off the radar and no one heard from him for years. Now he's returned, and an unnamed friend insists that the slightly burned Wally have dinner with him.
In terms of plot, that's all there is. It's really just two hours of these two men (mostly Andre) talking. One might assume that watching two men eat and talk would be boring, and they would be right. But not as much as one might think. They talk about things that, while not revolutionary, are intriguing, and the performances are strong.
The film is essentially divided into two parts, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. First, Andre explains in detail where he's been the last few years and what he did. This part is interesting because Gregory is a good actor, but the stories he tell are filled with, I think, magical realism, and are thus hard to follow. Plus Gregory's soft voice threatened to lull me to sleep on a few occasions. The second part is where Andre explains what he learned from his experiences, and this is interesting because we get to listen to a philosophical tete-a-tete between Wally and Andre. Unfortunately, because of his experiences (we don't know much about what he was like beforehand), Andre has become an elitist and a nihilist.
Essentially, Andre has become convinced that the constraints of modern society have turned us into creatures of habit and we thus have lost the ability to relate to people on a real level. There's some merit to this thought, and to an extent I agree with it. But Andre takes it way too far, to the point where he says there are times when we have to drop everything to get back to our natural selves. According to him, we're essentially sheep who do things because we're expected to, be it jobs or relationships. He suggests abandoning everything that doesn't give us "real" joy.
Sound words to live by, but he neglects to think about the comfort that can exist in routine and normal society. As Wally points out, one doesn't have to climb to the top of Mount Everest to truly live life. There's joy to be found by simply waking up to a good cup of coffee and spending time with your spouse. And if we find joy in that, it doesn't mean that we've turned into robots.
The performances by Shawn and Gregory are excellent. It would be a natural, if misplaced, assumption that the two actors are merely playing themselves on camera (you try acting like yourself when told to. Being conscious of being told to do it makes it hard...especially if you've got specific lines to say). They're good enough to make us believe it, but that's not the case. They said that if given the opportunity, they would love to play the other character.
The film was directed by Louis Malle, and although the camerawork is effective, the constraints of the script would make any sort of directorial style or flourish a hindrance. This is a movie that could be simply listened to on an iPod with almost nothing lost (and perhaps a little gained).
I really can't recommend the film. It's too long and confusing in the first half, and the longer the film goes on, the more unlikable Andre becomes; he's the precursor to the intellectual elite (those morons who only like stuff that's dry and incomprehensible) and the hipster. But it is not as boring as it could have been.
Starring: Wallace Shawn, Andre Gregory
How does one begin to review "My Dinner with Andre"? For one thing, by clearly stating that it is not a normal film. The 1981 arthouse smash has little of what we expect from a traditional movie. Save for two extremely short book-ending sequences, the film takes place entirely at a restaurant and almost always between two characters, Wally Shawn and Andre Gregory.
Wally Shawn (Shawn) is a struggling playwright and actor who is meeting an old friend: his mentor, Andre Gregory (Gregory). They were very close, but a few years ago, Andre fell off the radar and no one heard from him for years. Now he's returned, and an unnamed friend insists that the slightly burned Wally have dinner with him.
In terms of plot, that's all there is. It's really just two hours of these two men (mostly Andre) talking. One might assume that watching two men eat and talk would be boring, and they would be right. But not as much as one might think. They talk about things that, while not revolutionary, are intriguing, and the performances are strong.
The film is essentially divided into two parts, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. First, Andre explains in detail where he's been the last few years and what he did. This part is interesting because Gregory is a good actor, but the stories he tell are filled with, I think, magical realism, and are thus hard to follow. Plus Gregory's soft voice threatened to lull me to sleep on a few occasions. The second part is where Andre explains what he learned from his experiences, and this is interesting because we get to listen to a philosophical tete-a-tete between Wally and Andre. Unfortunately, because of his experiences (we don't know much about what he was like beforehand), Andre has become an elitist and a nihilist.
Essentially, Andre has become convinced that the constraints of modern society have turned us into creatures of habit and we thus have lost the ability to relate to people on a real level. There's some merit to this thought, and to an extent I agree with it. But Andre takes it way too far, to the point where he says there are times when we have to drop everything to get back to our natural selves. According to him, we're essentially sheep who do things because we're expected to, be it jobs or relationships. He suggests abandoning everything that doesn't give us "real" joy.
Sound words to live by, but he neglects to think about the comfort that can exist in routine and normal society. As Wally points out, one doesn't have to climb to the top of Mount Everest to truly live life. There's joy to be found by simply waking up to a good cup of coffee and spending time with your spouse. And if we find joy in that, it doesn't mean that we've turned into robots.
The performances by Shawn and Gregory are excellent. It would be a natural, if misplaced, assumption that the two actors are merely playing themselves on camera (you try acting like yourself when told to. Being conscious of being told to do it makes it hard...especially if you've got specific lines to say). They're good enough to make us believe it, but that's not the case. They said that if given the opportunity, they would love to play the other character.
The film was directed by Louis Malle, and although the camerawork is effective, the constraints of the script would make any sort of directorial style or flourish a hindrance. This is a movie that could be simply listened to on an iPod with almost nothing lost (and perhaps a little gained).
I really can't recommend the film. It's too long and confusing in the first half, and the longer the film goes on, the more unlikable Andre becomes; he's the precursor to the intellectual elite (those morons who only like stuff that's dry and incomprehensible) and the hipster. But it is not as boring as it could have been.
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