My Dinner With Andre

 My Dinner With Andre

Director: Louis Malle 

Screenplay: Andre Gregory & Wallace Shawn

Photography: Jeri Sopanen 

Staring: Andre Gregory & Wallace Shawn

Year: 1981

Country: USA

The concept of two guys just sitting and talking isn't something new to me. I had seen Jim Jarmusch's Coffee and Cigarettes, though that's a kids' film compared to My Dinner with Andre. If this should be compared to any other film it should be Sidney Lumet's 12 Angry Men. 

 An intellectual show-piece, Wallace Shawn (playing a version of himself) gets an invite to have dinner with an old friend and fellow playwright, Andre Gregory (also a shadow of his true self) to one of New York's finest restaurants. Shawn is reluctant, we learn from narration as he travels on the Subway, to take the invitation, but does so because Gregory has been out of the country for a few years travelling in the far-east. He hears from mutual friends that upon his return, Andre has become an odd and an ambiguous character.  


 After some confusion over the restaurant's French menu, they eventually sit down for a meal of quails. Andre recounts the tales of his travels. These tales are primary allegories of philosophical questions about the human condition, science and superstition.


 It would be dreadfully easy for a movie like this to be pretentious, or just plain nonsense. But it's completely sincere and completely intelligent and will definitely  make you question yourself or your views during some point it it's 110 minute run-time. As good philosophy should.


 The acting in this movie is phenomenal.  Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory both have personas that don't make their character's wit or articulation feel contrived. Louis Malle hardly feels like he has a presence in the movie because it all seems so natural.


 Somewhat like Hitchcock's Rope, the film gives the impression of being one continuous take. Obviously it's not, no film reel is that long. And I doubt any actor could remember this script of by heart. Even two men of the theatre such as Gregory and Shawn.


My Dinner With Andre is a one of a kind film that should satisfy anyone who doesn't feel they get enough intellectual stimulation from cinema in general.


Score: 4.5/5