The Dinner Game (1998)
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The Dinner Game Movie Review
The Dinner Game is a 1998 French comedy film directed by Francis Veber and starring Jacquet Villeret and Thierry Lhermitte. It’s a pretty solid, fun flick.
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“Sometimes I feel like you’re really taking me for an imbecile“
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It follows Pierre who every Wednesday attends a dinner for idiots where everyone brings the dumbest person they could find as a guest. Eventually, his “idiot” manages to turn the tables on him. It all ends in that preaching moral of kindness, which was expected, but solidly handled. I did find the film hating on its characters a bit, but still there are such people, so the film is ultimately grounded in reality.
But these characters are mostly comedy archetypes. You have this very mean-spirited, rich, thieving man who is so miserable that he wants to put other people to misery, and you have a lovable, but also annoyingly curious, and kind “fool” who is there to teach our protagonist some things.
Though very standard, their relationship is so well explored and portrayed that I ended up liking it quite a bit. I also found both performances very strong, especially Villeret’s powerhouse comedic turn. He is the only funny character of the bunch, and he did make me chuckle a couple of times in the movie.
The Dinner Game reminded me of those old-fashioned 60s comedies from the US such as ‘The Odd Couple’ in that it’s very stagey for better and for worse. It all happens mostly in this one apartment, which made it charming, but still way too limited in scope, and at times obviously made from a play that it became somewhat distracting.
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I also found all of the other characters very underutilized and underdeveloped, though that led to greater development for the main characters, which was at the end of the day a choice that paid off significantly. In terms of the heart, it has plenty. But it also does have that nasty edge to it in terms of cynicism, which personally did not annoy me as it did many other critics. I found the humor somewhat repetitive and at times lackluster, but when it worked, it was quite solid, especially in the fun first act.
The Dinner Game can get repetitive, it’s very familiar in its central relationship, and overall it felt too stagey and limited in scope, but when it worked, it worked with a pretty solid humor, and in particular the two main characters are quite well developed. Their dynamic is very memorable and a lot of fun.
