Plantiana Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

GazerRise Fantastic!

Griff Lees Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Cheryl A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

Dalbert Pringle And, what is 1981's "My Dinner With Andre" all about - You may ask??Well - If you can imagine yourself as a customer at a fancy-schmancy restaurant and you are sitting at a table next to the likes of Boris Karloff and Elmer Fudd who are engaging in a rather loud, half-assed conversation - That should give you a pretty good idea of this film's plot-line.For me - The bulk of the conversation that took place between this film's 2 less-than-dynamic characters was certainly far from being anything coming close to real "meat and potatoes" talk. That's for sure. In fact - I found it to be just "watery soup" rantings and ravings for the most part.After having to endure paying attention to 80 minutes of Andre's incessant babble and kitchen-counter philosophy (while Wallace listened on with the keenest of interest) was (indeed) a real test of my patience.I mean - This particular chin-wag only started to pick up some significant steam in its last 30 minutes. And by that point I was way too bored to care one way or the other about what was being said between the likes of Boris and Elmer here.

Riley Porter I'm not aware that there is another film quite like My Dinner with Andre, and it's seems to me that there will probably never be another like it. Regardless of how successful you think this film is, I think you have to admire the ambition of it. In a conventional sense, this film is basically one hour and a half long scene. It is as the title suggests. It is a feature length dinner conversation. Of course, if you haven't seen the film you would probably scoff at the mere prospect of it. How are you supposed to film nearly two hours of a single conversation had between two guys out to dinner? What are you supposed to do with the camera? When considering this, I have the utmost respect for Louis Malle. He understood that the film was not in the film making, but in the content. There is nothing flashy about this film. What you imagine is likely what you will receive. You simply watch a conversation take place over dinner. So, naturally the notion of a film which lacks any sort of special film making execution is likely going to make some people apprehensive. That's understandable. The reason I wanted to highlight the minimalist approach to the direction of this film is to illustrate just how excellently it is written. This is perhaps one of the most sincerely written films I have ever seen. The dialogue here is not just a lengthy exchange of quips and thinly veiled conniving, nor is it a load of pretentious philosophy and celebration of the human intellect. It is simply two people talking to each other honestly about their lives. The key term here being 'honest'. I think that if you were to try to separate definitively the good films from the bad ones, a good way to go about it would be to examine which ones are truly honest. Specifically, which ones are honest about the human experience. In this way, My Dinner with Andre becomes a great film. I believe every word that these characters are saying. The experiences they relate are real, and that they have affected them profoundly. In a way, it's almost frightening. The dialogue of this film, which is really the film in its entirety, is born out of such a universal human truth that it inevitably speaks to the heart of all that will watch it. I will be fair. Like I said before, this is a very minimalist film. If you come for a grandiose and masterful execution of the visual medium, then you will likely be disappointed. I'm not saying this film is directed poorly. The decisions made with concern for the final product were the correct ones. In order for this film to respect the spirit of honesty which the writing embodies, it had to surrender itself to its concept. As admirable as it is, I do understand that this film is almost too ambitious (though some would say not ambitious enough). Film is fundamentally a visual medium, and while I think the performances on screen justify the use of film, I do concede that a film which is just dialogue contradicts the nature of film making itself. This is the pinnacle of writing, but it is not the pinnacle of the art of the motion picture. Regardless, I would sincerely encourage that you watch this film if you haven't, because there's a good chance you'll love it.

Eric Stevenson I honestly think that this is the most realistic movie I have ever seen in my entire life. I understand how a lot of people want movies to be realistic and this fits the bill perfectly. I do like it when a lot of movies try to be elaborate and have a lot going on. I still appreciate how a film or any work just plain cuts the bullcrap and presents everything the exact way it's supposed to be. It makes me realize that Wallace Shawn is in three of the best movies I've ever seen in my entire life! Even better, he briefly mentions something being "inconceivable", an interesting line that would become more relevant in his later movie "The Princess Bride". I know it was just a voice, but he was in the "Toy Story" movies.This movie tells the story of two guys who eat in a restaurant and talk. That is all the plot this movie has, seriously. It doesn't matter, because this film just comes off as so real to me. It's just nothing but two guys talking. It may be the best representation of a slice of life story I've ever seen in my whole life. It's even hard for me to even talk about this movie. For me to even mention it, I would probably say the exact same things said in this movie. The film itself even seems like a lengthy movie review itself at times, as they talk about stories and plots.The best conversation is probably when they're talking about the fortune cookies. They talk about what the true value of omens and philosophy in general. Every single person on Earth knows what it's like to eat dinner with someone. This is exactly how it goes out. Only about eleven minutes (or ten percent of the film) takes place outside them talking. I will admit that most people generally don't take that long to eat. Then again, I know talkative people. Please see one of the most sincere movies ever made! ****

Charlie Ralph I am a very big fan of very talky movies, to the extent where I believe that the phrase "show don't tell" is the worst thing that's ever happened to cinema. Take the first fifty minutes of this movie for example, where Andre is recounting his experiences. If we were to employ the "show don't tell" rule to this section of the movie, we would follow Andre from experience to experience as he tells of his hedonistic voyages that all roughly outline the point of his argument, and at least in my eyes it would be very boring. Without dialogue and expression to provide context, what we're left with is simply attractive or unattractive images. While it's possible to derive meaning from these images inferred from visual metaphors, these are almost always employed after the fact by audiences searching for meaning where there is none. While I don't want this review to stumble into the area of hatred, suffice to say the one connecting factor of all my least-favourite directors is the priority they place in storytelling by showing and not telling.So I believe with that off my chest I can talk about My Dinner With Andre more specifically, beyond the reach of it being a film full of dialogue and me loving the correct usage of dialogue in films. The pace of this movie is something to be admired in the sense that it has a gradual incline throughout. Unshackled from the need to provide plot beats or a three-act structure, the film is free to travel as it wants, and due to the conversation (as most intimate conversations do) becoming more and more personal, the pace of the film naturally slowly speeds up and becomes more enjoyable throughout as the conversation becomes less trivial and more insightful. By the end of the movie I was thoroughly enraptured because what the two characters were saying genuinely felt like it meant something to me. This may have been due to the characters in the movie reflecting mine (Wallace) and my father's (Andre) views on consumerism and spirituality, but I also think it speaks to the quality of the film's insights.But beyond what the characters say, which is the most attractive aspect of the movie, there is also something to admire in the world around the characters. While we are being sucked into this discussion just as the two people involved in it are, we forget that the world is moving around them (ironically a topic of discussion in the movie itself). I felt the natural passing of time in the movie just as it was in real life, which is a strange thing to say unless you too have seen the movie and understand what I mean. It's a rare feat, and one that is common in many of my favourite films (Before Sunrise in particular). By the time the final scene started and the beautiful song 'Gymnopedie No. 1' started, I felt like I had been naturally transported into the film itself and I had been through the exact same experience as the characters. Again, it's such an odd thing to see written down that I feel like you can only understand what I mean if you sit down, focus and spend 110 minutes watching these two people talking.And I think that's my point. The reason that I'm giving this movie five stars is that it's an experience unlike any other. When people say that about certain movies (and again, I won't go into detail) it has a tendency to frustrate and annoy me. Indeed, in my most recent review of Rachel Getting Married, my favourite film of all-time, I said that I refuse to speak of a film as if it's an experience that goes beyond simply sitting down and watching a movie. Well this is my exception that proves the rule, as My Dinner With Andre has an almost unsettling ability to cause even the most brutally non-spiritual to wax transcendent.