Review of The Dinner (2017) by Betty Ann D — 12 May 2018

Rarely does a movie go so far out of its way to not tell a story as The Dinner does. Though it presents itself as being about a group of parents who meet to discuss how to handle a crime that their sons committed, it's constantly going off on tangents and then the tangents go on tangents.

One of the film's themes is mental illness, so perhaps it's the film's intention to disorientate the audience. But it makes for piss-poor storytelling. It takes about half of the film to suss out who all the characters are and what's happened.

And the film doesn't have an ending, it just stops. Featuring Richard Gere, Laura Linney, Steve Coogan, and Rebecca Hall, the cast is pretty good and delivers some strong performance, yet they're not able to save this mess.

The Dinner is just a badly make film plain and simple.