In 1981, at the start of a decade that would see the rejection of New Hollywood auteurism in favor of big studio blockbusters, a curious little movie enjoyed modest success. It was called My Dinner with Andre, directed by Louis Malle from a screenplay written by its two co-stars, Andre Gregory and Wallace Shawn (best known for his roles in The Princess Bride and Clueless.) Its title summarizes the plot in its entirety: Shawn and Gregory sit down to dinner in a fancy restaurant, where their conversation about professional ennui and spiritual philosophy plays out more or less in real time. Andre, a theater director coming off a midlife crisis, extols his newfound spiritual beliefs to a skeptical Wallace (or “Wally,” as Andre calls him), who has a more grounded, pragmatic worldview. There are no major revelations or dramatic contrivances; these two men don’t walk away from this dinner forever changed. They just have a lot to think about.
They Don't Make Movies Like 'My Dinner With Andre' Anymore
If My Dinner with Andre were released today, it would gross maybe $200,000 in New York and Los Angeles before being banished to streaming purgatory within the month. But in 1981, it grossed over $5 million: nothing eye-popping, especially in the days before streaming and home video, but still over ten times its budget. It left a long cultural shadow, as well, through both references and influence. It became a sort of metonym for dry, highbrow cinema (Milhouse from The Simpsons plays a My Dinner with Andre arcade game), even as its meandering conversations, semi-autobiographical nature, and nuanced depiction of cosmopolitan life anticipated everything from Seinfeld to Before Sunrise to Girls. When people mourn the decline of “movies for adults,” they’re mourning the absence of movies like Andre: thoughtful, understated films that may not appeal to everyone, but find their audience all the same.
'My Dinner With Andre' Still Resonates Today
Some viewers may dismiss My Dinner with Andre out of hand. It is, after all, about two privileged, middle-aged white men talking about their problems in a swanky French restaurant. Andre could afford to travel the world during his midlife crisis, and although Wally has plenty of money issues, he still manages to earn a living in New York City as a working actor and playwright, which would be almost impossible in the present day without sharing an apartment with eleven people. (He also mentions growing up wealthy; in real life, Shawn’s father, William, was the longtime editor for The New Yorker.) What could these two characters possibly say that would resonate today?
Plenty, as it turns out. The Café des Artistes may have closed, and the New York subways have a lot less graffiti, but Andre’s themes of existential alienation have only grown more potent. As Wally trudges his way to a social obligation he’s dreading, his voiceover takes stock of his life and finds it lacking: he’s a frustrated writer, going through “the errands of [his] trade” without much in the way of personal satisfaction. “When I was ten years old…all I thought about was art and music. Now I’m 36, and all I think about is money.” In our current landscape, which people call “late-stage capitalism” because the alternative is too horrible to consider, what could be more relatable than that?
The conversation between Wally and Andre is, at the start, mostly one-sided. As soon as Wally sits down, Andre begins to regale him with exciting tales of his adventures: staging a production of The Little Prince in the desert, visiting an ecovillage in Scotland, and being buried alive in Montauk. Andre is an engaging speaker, and his experiences sound fascinating, but anyone who’s had dinner with someone who just got back from studying abroad will recognize Wally’s impatience as Andre blathers on. Eventually, Wally starts to push back against some of Andre’s more mystical claims, such as the residents of the Scottish ecovillage keeping pests away from their crops by asking nicely. When Andre asserts that these experiences were what shook him from his rut, Wally pushes back even more. After all, not everyone can leave their job for a few years to go on avant-garde theater retreats.
'My Dinner With Andre' Doesn't Try to Give You Easy Answers
The dialogue that follows covers various subjects, each more abstract and esoteric than the last. But no matter how many monologues they trade about modern society, spiritualism, and how long it’s been since things have gone “haywire” (Andre thinks Sacheen Littlefeather accepting Marlon Brando’s Oscar was the last time it happened), the underlying question remains the same: how does one cope with the modern world? Andre believes that people have become alienated from their true nature and that too much comfort breeds a dangerous complacency: “somebody who’s bored is asleep, and somebody who’s asleep will not say no.” Wally, on the other hand, thinks that rejecting the modern world is impractical at best and pointless at worst: “Isn’t there just as much ‘reality’ to be perceived in the cigar store as there is on Mount Everest? Don’t you find it pleasant just to get up in the morning?”
Society has changed immeasurably since 1981, but these changes only make Andre’s themes more urgent. What does “comfort” mean in a world that seems to be teetering on the edge of collapse? What does “reality” mean when the internet allows people to curate their own existence to the point where even the truth is subjective? How much agency does the individual have to truly change their life? If someone has found a way to deal with the aches and pains of living, is it right to challenge their beliefs, even if you disagree? Is it even possible to deal with modern life, or is every coping mechanism just delaying an inevitable reckoning?
By the time Andre and Wally finish their dinner, Andre seems much less sure of himself than he was at the start. But as Wally takes a taxi back to his apartment, passing various New York locations he remembers from his youth, he appears content, even peaceful. Maybe this conversation will inspire both of them to do more soul-searching, changing their views once again. Maybe they’ll both go to sleep and forget all about it in the morning. It’s uncertain, but as Satie’s tranquil “Gymnopedie No. 1” plays in the background, it suggests that there’s a certain peace in that uncertainty. My Dinner with Andre has been dismissed as pretentious by some, but pretension suggests dishonesty, and Andre’s existential unease rings with sincerity. It doesn’t have the answers, and it doesn’t claim to. But it provides a quiet, meditative space in a nice Manhattan restaurant to think it over — at a time when too many movies tell you how to feel, that open-endedness should be treasured.
ncG1vNJzZmibn6G5qrDEq2Wcp51kurp5w6Klp52iYsSqwMdmmKecopp6rrvVopxo