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The Dinner
2017 120 min United States of America R 18+
★5.0
Drama, Thriller, Mystery
Director: Oren Moverman
Trailers
Description
Two brothers and their wives meet up at a haute-cuisine restaurant to discuss what to do about a horrific crime that their sons committed together. As the quartet debate their options, the conversation reopens old wounds between the siblings.
US Gross:
$1.32M
Worldwide:
$2.5M
Starring
Michael Chernus
Actor
Taylor Rae Almonte-Roman
Actor
Steve Coogan
Actor
Awards
Berlin International Film Festival 2017
— Golden Bear
Key opinion
The Dinner is a polarizing chamber drama that divides audiences between those who appreciate its intense, dialogue-driven performances and those who find its fragmented structure pretentious and tedious. While the cast receives significant praise for their portrayal of complex characters, the film's reliance on disjointed flashbacks and a slow, meandering pace leaves many viewers feeling disconnected and unsatisfied.
| Acting | The ensemble cast, featuring Richard Gere, Laura Linney, and Steve Coogan, delivers strong and convincing performances that anchor the film. | |
| Direction | The film's experimental structure, characterized by disjointed flashbacks and unconventional, overlapping audio, alienates mainstream viewers but finds favor with fans of minimalistic, authorial arthouse cinema. | |
| Runtime | The two-hour runtime feels excessive and poorly utilized, leading to a sense of exhaustion and lack of narrative momentum for many viewers. | |
| Screenplay | Opinions on the screenplay are sharply divided: some admire the focus on complex moral dilemmas and dialogue-heavy character exploration, while others find the dialogue pretentious, incoherent, and ultimately devoid of tension. |