[Movie Review] Dinner With Friends (HBO Films, 2001)

Dinner with Friends

HBO Films, 2001

Director: Norman Jewison
Writers: Donald Margulies (play, teleplay)
Starring: Dennis Quaid, Andie MacDowell, Greg Kinnear, Toni Colette

When my mom cleaned out her DVD collection, I decided to take a look and see if there was anything in the "donate box" that interested me; this title was one of my finds. I had never watched it before, didn't know anything about it (though I could take a wild guess that it would involve a group of friends, and at least one dinner), so I went in essentially blind.

The establishing shot brings us to the home of professional food-writers Gabe (Dennis Quaid) and Karen (Andie MacDowell), who are in the midst of preparing dinner for their longtime friends Tom (Greg Kinnear) and Beth (Toni Collette). The doorbell rings, but it's only Beth and her kids; no Tom in sight. While the two couples' kids watch Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory on VHS in the next room, Beth bursts unexpectedly into tears and confesses that she and she and Tom are getting a divorce, and that he's leaving her for another woman. Gabe and Karen are stunned: they've known Tom and Beth since before their kids were born, how could they just split up like this? Karen is furious with Tom's infidelity, while Gabe takes a more hurt-and-bewildered approach, wanting to hear the husband's side of the story (which of course makes his wife even angrier that he would even consider listening to "that philanderer"). Tom, upset to learn that Beth has stolen a march on him by telling their friends about their breakup without him, hurries over to explain himself, but finds himself bewlidered by a distinct coolness, even lack of sympathy, from two of his oldest friends. Act One concludes with both couples dealing with the fallout in their own ways: one through an argument about forgiveness and hypothetical infidelity, the other through a shouting-match which unexpectedly metamorphoses into passionate hate-sex.

Next, we're taken on a flashback to twelve years previously, when Gabe and Karen first introduced Beth to Tom during a stay at their Martha's Vineyard summer home (!). The happy young couples -- one established, one new-made -- bathed in the sepia light of a summer evening, make decisions and form bonds which we (the audience) know will lead to a decade of misery, broken families, and long-term friendships dying on the vine. The result is a that everything that follows feels foreordained, like there's no way it could have been avoided or mitigated. The audience can only watch helplessly as the characters begin down roads which we know lead to profound unhappiness -- not exactly a sensation that I, personally, enjoy feeling (outside of horror stories, that is).

The story shifts forwards a few months, and we see that everything has changed; between the men, as well as between the women. Both of the new divorcées are making drastic, ill-advised changes to their lives: changes which shock and bewilder their longtime friends, making them question whether they even want to remain friends with people who suddenly seem like strangers, and forcing them to reevaluate whether their own marriage is really any stronger than the one that's just fallen apart before their very eyes.

Margulies's dialogue is realistic, with plenty of interruptions, repetitions, and idiosyncratic turns of phrase, yet dense and multilayered in that peculiar way that only stage-plays can be. While I appreciate how difficult it is to write dialogue that reveals character and moves the plot forward while still sounding natural and unrehearsed, I found that it was a little exhausting to listen to after a while. When every sentence is jam-packed with meaning, I found myself subconsciously trying to interpret and analyze as I watched, and as a result I often felt a little behind-the-curve, struggling to keep up with the oncoming barrage of dialogue and plot-points.

Despite feeling badly for the characters and their emotional/marital situations, I found that their obscene levels of wealth to be distracting, and a bit of a turn-off. Sure, it sucks that you're getting a divorce, but maybe, I don't know, your enormous piles of cash will make that a little easier to bear. Both couples live in enormous, multi-story houses in East Coast suburbia, with three-car garages and tasteful interior décor and marble counter-tops strewn with cooking magazines and fresh ingredients brought back from their most recent trip to Italy. I realize that this movie came out just before the dot-com bubble burst, that standards of wealth were a lot higher back then, but for me it felt like their characters' luxurious lifestyle was a barrier to empathy (which is sort of odd for me, because I never felt that way while watching Downton Abbey or reading The Great Gatsby).

Call it sour grapes if you like, I just couldn't get over feeling like these people were finally getting a dose of the reality that their money and prestigious occupations had insulated them against for so long. Add to that the story's depressing, futility-laced subject-matter and the fact that I just never believed Toni Collette's dry-eyed forced sobs, and you've got a recipe for a dinner which is passable the first time around, but one where I definitely won't be going back for a second helping.