The Dinner
(2017)Two struggling families make the hardest decisions of their lives over the course of one meal in this thriller directed by Oscar-nominee Oren Moverman (The Messenger) and based on Herman Koch's bestseller. Nominated for the top prize at Berlin International Film Festival.... More
The Dinner invites us to a chic, exclusive restaurant with two seemingly successful couples - Paul and Claire Lohman (Steve Coogan and Laura Linney) and Paul’s politician brother Stan and his wife Katelyn (Richard Gere and Rebecca Hall). As the evening and each course progresses, their cracks as individuals begin to show and a dark secret about their children emerges. Now they must make the most difficult decision of their lives: do they do what's right or protect their children?Hide
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Directed by Oren Moverman ('The Messenger', 'Rampart', 'Time Out of Mind')
Starring Richard Gere, Laura Linney, Rebecca Hall, Steve Coogan, Chloë Sevigny, Michael Chernus, Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick, Charlie Plummer
Written by Oren Moverman (based on the novel of the same name by Herman Koch)
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The Dinner
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What we're left with is a morality play in which three deeply deplorable people - and one surprising white knight - wrestle with class privilege, mental illness and extremely silly food. Full Review
"The Dinner" turns a high-end double date into a seething evisceration of the upper class and the moral rot lurking beneath its well-heeled facade. Full Review
By trying to keep the prolonged sit-down affair from becoming excessively stagey, Moverman adds too many distracting flashbacks to maintain the original's hard-hitting and well-aimed gut punch. Full Review
Richard Gere, Laura Linney, Steve Coogan, and Rebecca Hall make a riveting quartet in Oren Moverman's adaptation of the Herman Koch novel about a dark-hearted dinner gathering. Full Review
The Dinner is two hours of unrelenting nastiness, steeped in the trappings of extreme wealth and the toxic privilege it affords. Full Review
There are bumps along the way, but Moverman and his top-tier cast (Gere, Coogan, Hall and Linney) take a piece out of you. It's a gripping psychological thriller with a sting in its tail. Full Review
A shouty, hammy, tedious, damp-squib firework display of dullness. Full Review
BY Adam Fresco Flicks Writer
Directed and adapted by Oren Moverman, from Herman Koch’s novel, The Dinner is served up in a posh restaurant, where two brothers and their wives meet to discuss how to deal with a violent crime committed by their teenage sons. Should they do the right thing, or protect their own?... More
The cast excel, with Steve Coogan excellent as the increasingly unbalanced history teacher, and Richard Gere solid as his politician brother. Laura Linney and Rebecca Hall, as their wives, subtly embody the maternal instinct to protect their children, despite patriarchal demands to impose justice, less for moral reasons than for self-preservation.
Slow-paced and thought-provoking, veering from boring, to overbearing, to fascinating and back again, as a metaphor for America’s racial and social divide, it’s ambitious, difficult and fiercely intellectual. Some may find the lack of resolution infuriating, but for those willing to take a seat, The Dinner is a mentally stimulating drama that offers no easy answers, but plenty of food for thought.Hide
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