My Dinner with Andre

Year of Release: 1981

Director: Louis Malle

Stars: Andre Gregory and Wallace Shawn

Screenplay: Andre Gregory and Wallace Shawn

If you haven't seen this little gem of a movie, I highly recommend that you go out and rent a copy (although, if you enjoy this movie as much as I did, you might do as I did and buy it). The film consists almost entirely of two friends, Andre and Wally, talking over dinner. Based on real-life conversations between the two actors, the subject matter ranges from the necessity of attentiveness in our every day lives to "experimental theater, the nature of theater, and the nature of reality." You may not find a movie featuring two guys talking to each other very exciting, but if you're looking for intellectual stimulus you could do a lot worse. As Roger Ebert wrote of it, "[i]t should be unwatchable, and yet those who love it return time and again, enchanted."

If you read the book form of the screenplay, the foreword sums up the genius of the idea behind this film: take conversations and events that happened to you in real life, condense them into a dialog, and then film it. It sounds pretty easy, though I'm sure actually trying to do this isn't. The genius lies in using real life to create a conversation on film that you, as a member of the audience, might very well have or have had yourself. For a couple of hours, you get to become almost a participant in the conversation between these two men -- or, at least, a fellow diner compelled to listen in.

The film opens with Wallace Shawn, playing a fictionalized version of himself, on his way to a restaurant to which he has been invited by old friend Andre Gregory (also playing a fictionalized self) -- whom he has not seen in years and dreads meeting because of rumors he's heard that make him worry about the other man's mental state. Shawn plays a guy struggling to pay his bills and just get through life, and the last thing he wants is to have an encounter with someone who may turn out to be unhinged from reality. Nevertheless, since this invitation to dinner presents a break from the humdrum of his existence, he has accepted.

Meeting Andre Gregory at the restaurant, the two sit down to dinner and the rest of the film until the closing scene is comprised of conversation. The more grounded Wally, who is mostly concerned with maintaining his cozy, oblivious existence, does most of the listening while Andre does most of the talking. The ideas put forth in this film ultimately leave one of the two friends with a transformed outlook on life. And what are these ideas? Watch the movie and find out, because if I go into any detail I won't be able to stop, and I'll have spoiled it for you. Suffice to say, however, that while there are moments of despair (Gregory laments that the 1960s were the "last burst of the human being before he was extinguished"), there are also moments of satire, humor, and a bit of the surreal.

Roger Ebert describes the film as exploiting "the well-known ability of the mind to picture a story as it is being told," and I heartily agree. Andre Gregory weaves his tales as only a master storyteller can, and I could very easily see in my mind the events as they are described. What I enjoyed most about the movie is the lessons it teaches about being aware of our surroundings and the people with whom we share our lives, and finding enjoyment in pursuing answers to life's questions even if the ones we find aren't the answers we start out looking for.

The late Louis Malle (1932 - 1995) greatly demonstrated with this movie why he was one of the 20th Century's best directors. My Dinner with Andre was filmed over the course of weeks, in an abandoned hotel. But Malle pulls off the illusion that the movie was shot in real time, in a bustling restaurant. Everything, from the camera angles and closeups of the two stars to reflections in mirrors designed to make the set appear more crowded than it is, was expertly calculated and choreographed.

If you don't want to sit through two hours of two men talking, you can buy the book version of the screenplay. It's as good a read, if not better, as it is a movie-watching experience. An affordable DVD is hard to track down (Amazon.com has copies starting at more than $100!), but if you still have a VCR you can buy the VHS format. Whichever route you take to becoming familiar with this gem, by all means take it. For truly, My Dinner with Andre is one of those rare feats in cinema: the perfect combination of story, character development, and directing, resulting in a remarkable and transforming film. How transforming? Watch this clip.