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No sooner do the reunited friends sit down at the table than the watcher is sucked into the film - it is as if we are AT THE TABLE, eating dinner with andre as he relates his personal experiences and what he has learned from them.
Never before have I been sucked into a film in such a way, neither have I ever before been left with the frightening suspicion that the contents of the film were more real than my normal life.
By then end of the film, your entire perspective on life has changed and you realise one thing - something about the way everyone lives their life is wrong and something must be done about it. Now.
If you aren't inspired by this film then you may be in serious trouble.
Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory are brilliant. They spend almost the entire time before the cameras in animated conversation while eating dinner in a small restaurant in New York City. The conversation is unforgettable and the reason it will not soon leave my memory is that I feel I was there at the table with them. This effect is due to the considerable skills of the director, Louis Malle.
Shawn has been a busy actor and playwright throughout his career with frequent appearances in various productions such as VANYA ON 42ND STREET, a movie with the same kind of appeal as MY DINNER WITH ANDRE. Gregory has worked primarily as a stage director.
Louis Malle is also an excellent director with many film credits including VANYA ON 42ND STREET.
This is either a movie you will turn off after fifteen minutes, or it is a movie you will watch over and over again to pick up all the things you missed in previous screenings. The former will be bored and lost by the endless, meaningless talk. The latter will find gold in every word, and veins left to be mined time after time.
In simple terms, the question is understood "If life is a stage, are you going to be an actor, a director, or a playwright?" It is the viewer's choice. Wally is a struggling playwright who has fallen back on acting. Andre is a former actor and director who has left the theatre entirely. Wally and Andre meet for dinner, and Andre recounts his experiences since leaving the theatre.
But one of the ironies is that their dinner itself is theatre, and both Andre and Wally have roles to fill. [Notice they wrote the script and use their real names. They are not playing characters. They are necessarily playing themselves.] And summarily the viewer also has a role to fill. If life is a stage, viewing the theatre is in itself theatre. The viewer is now in a place of choosing the role. And will that choice be made mechanically or deliberately? Mechanics is acting. Deliberation is playwrighting.
This is a brilliant, brilliant film. One of the greatest movies of all time. And its resolve is purely subjective to the individual viewer. The goal is to deliberate and come away enlightened (literally). Unfortunately the majority of viewers will act mechanically and turn it off.
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