It has been a while since a film really left an impact on me. And I mean a real enough impact that led to me wanting to discuss it with people, that left me with a feeling of content but also a plethora of questions that bounded around in my mind for hours after. It feels rare that I find films that impact me with any true intensity these days, and My Dinner with Andre was such an incredible surprise that I just did not expect. Before I go more into this film, if you are reading this, I'd like you to also to also think of films that you feel have really resonated with you; ones that have left you either with a new way of thinking or understanding of the world. If you have any films you can recall, let me know about them! These films are truly something, managing to connect with us on our most human levels. Luring us in with themes or events that just seem so authentic to us that we really do feel the realness of what's being portrayed.
I did end up talking about this film with three people in total. I had such an urge to share the film and its themes with others due to the ways in which it left me realising the many conversations I have with people that I just absolutely love. And at its core, My Dinner with Andre is a film all about the idea of conversation. The power it holds when two people are capable of sitting down, and just communicating. This feels even more rare in today's chaotic, depressing hellscape that leads to people glued to their phones even during social settings. Full of anxiety and a sweating desperation to grasp firmly onto the phone even when not in use. I feel that My Dinner with Andre is a highly important film in the present for multiple reasons, especially due to this aforementioned loss of our ability to really communicate. How often do you feel that the person you are with is really with you? As in devoting their full attention to you as you are with them? That you're both present in that moment, void of technology and the endless pinging reminders they bring to login to an app to maintain a streak, or check out mindless feeds of political bait aimed at ruining your day and turning your anger into a metric?
This isn't even what My Dinner with Andre is about. A film from the 80s, it isn't about the simplicity of life and conversations. It isn't about one's lost ability to focus. It is a story on life itself. My Dinner with Andre barely even feels like a film, in fact, it is much like watching a podcast from the 1980s, in which two people sit opposite each other and just talk. Though, this is no early podcast. This is a fictional story heavily influenced by life. Observations caught throughout everyday moments. Struggles faced. Lessons, of course, ignored and learned. The experience of this film? Well, it very easily ended up being on of my all-time favourites due to its themes.
This isn't really a film you can spoil, so don't worry about reading and seeing spoilers, it doesn't matter, based on how the film is. Like I said: My Dinner with Andre is basically like watching a podcast. No major narrative, but plenty of character development.
My Dinner with Andre
There are few films which manage to really utilise a limited space well, and My Dinner with Andre is one of those films which manages to not only do it well, but so well that you don't really notice it. There's not really a moment in which you feel the film is dragging on or that the location is becoming stale, and that's primarily a result of an incredible script. My Dinner with Andre, introduces one of its protagonists as a beaten-down, middle-aged man that has lost his sense of pride in life. His being seems void of purpose, a man with many jobs that was once an aspiring artist which a completely different perspective on the world as a whole. With time, came the importance of money. The love for money, the need for money, which inevitably removed the passion for all things as everything became a desperate attempt to obtain more money. Rent and bills inevitably turning him into nothing more than a worker drone that does not think. We see his short trip on the way to a dinner he seems anxious about, with Andre. A man who appears to have much more experience in life and seemingly has things together.
It's quite interesting to see how the character of Wallace is introduced, and how the film initially sets up this idea of jealousy and fear of missing out with the dinner with Andre. That he feels void of direction and that the dinner will only make things worse. To begin with, the conversation starts out thin. Andre speaks on the many adventures he has, and Wallace, like the robot he now portrays himself as, just asks few follow-up questions here and there but doesn't really have anything to add to the topics. There really isn't anything for him to contribute, and this goes on for quite some time. It's like Andre is the main character, Wallace sitting there just listening, no stories or opinions to add. With this, you start to question where the film might be going, Wallace seems silent, and Andre continues to talk about influences, lessons he has managed to learn, and the people he has met along the way.
As this goes on, and on, Wallace actually begins to open up a little. His replies seem more energetic, more alive. There's more depth to them as he begins to have his own thoughts on the matter. As if his time with Andre has made him wake up after a long sleep. Eventually, it seems the conversation actually starts to become two-way, and there's a very interesting dynamic that ensues as a result of the varying opinions and topics. What comes is the realisation of life's many complexities, the right and the wrong way of living, the philosophy that comes with the awareness of being alive. Wallace, on one hand, believes that there is a way to be content with the mundane, and that sometimes just doing nothing is a way of living in the moment, depending on what you want to do in that very moment. Subjective, of course, comes the counter argument from Andre. I really, really enjoyed listening to them both talk about such complex themes on life, and this is where it feels much like a podcast, where neither side fully agrees or disagrees with the other, but there's no aggression or tension that comes from it as a result.
And even with this realisation of how the world is going downhill, how dystopian the present is growing (which is also quite scary given how accurate it was for 1980); the idea that New York is akin to a concentration camp in which the inhabitants don't even realise it, and even praise it as a new form of life. The dystopia that comes from a society that empties out the person within and produces someone that just consumes. These topics become incredible deep, but also very easy to follow with the dialogue. It comes to the point in which Wallace can really argue his perspective on life, while Andre almost feeds him new ideas that make Wallace look deeper within to discover who he really is. Is there a right way to live in this modern world? What damage does too much comfort bring to a human? There's a metaphor I really liked regarding the cold and use of an electric blanket: do you use an electric blanket because it is really cold, or do you use it and then forget about the possibilities of what comes from being cold? Perhaps you like being cold, perhaps being cold is a reminder of other things in life. By rejecting basic natural experiences, how does it shape your way of life and ability to think? Of course, this metaphor can go much deeper than this, but the general idea can apply to many different things.
With how each topic plays into the next, there isn't really a moment in My Dinner with Andre in which it feels like it is stagnating, the pacing almost feels linear, until so much time has passed that the restaurant is starting to close and there's no other choice but to end things. Wallace comes out of this entire experience with a new perspective on life and the locations around him, a heartwarming realisation of life and the idea of time. It's a really wonderful character development that unfolds over just one conversation over dinner. An incredibly beautiful story that is told in such a simple manner. We really watch Wallace unfold and become a new person. This is definitely a film that will have you coming out of it with a plethora of thoughts and questions about your own life, the kind of film that'll make you discover yourself and push you to understand who you really are. I love films like these, and they're often quite a struggle to find. I highly recommend it!
