Synopsis
Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory, apparently playing themselves, share their lives over the course of an evening meal at a restaurant.
1981 Directed by Louis Malle
Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory, apparently playing themselves, share their lives over the course of an evening meal at a restaurant.
My Dinner with André, Моја вечера са Андреом, Mi cena con André, 앙드레와의 저녁 식사, 앙드레와의 저녁식사, 안드레와의 저녁식사, Mein Essen mit Andre, Мой ужин с Андре, La mia cena con André, ארוחת ערב עם אנדרה, Meu Jantar com André, Andre ile Akşam Yemeği, Vacsorám Andréval, 与安德烈晚餐, Моя вечеря з Андре, Min middag med Andre, شامی با آندره, Το Δείπνο μου με τον Αντρέ, Ilta Andrén kanssa
Lately, I've been reconnecting with a lot of former friends and acquaintances from high school and college. And no, I don't mean on Facebook. I mean sitting down and having an actual conversation, filled with meaningful dialogue, heart wrenching regrets, near-death experiences, and spirited philosophical debates. While watching My Dinner with Andre, sometimes I checked out from whatever they were talking about and let my mind wander to things relevant to my own life. By the end I was moved and refreshed, just like I feel after these dinners/meet-ups I've been having that are becoming more and more frequent as I get older.
I can't say I have anything in common with white male playwrights, one of whom is content…
I watched this twice today. Wallace Shawn speaks from a place of familiar futility. He's the voice of the audience. Upon first viewing, I somewhat disliked Andre. He has the luxury of purchased hipster reality. He participates in quack cult-like retreats in foreign countries as away to reconnect with his humanity. Wally struggles to pay his bills and is content with the simple details of life, but in turn never bothers to ask important questions or take any risks.
Having lived in poverty for many years I will say that questioning your relationships and goals is a privilege of the rich. Travel is impossible, you're lucky if you can make your way out to a party that you probably don't…
Wallace walks to the restaurant like a long-dead ghost wandering to no place in particular through a bustling city of the living, he appears uncertain and anxious and blue, two hours later he will walk out of the restaurant with his feelings not inverted but irrevocably various and eager and rose coloured. He looks at the passing streetlights with eyes that cry out "jesus christ, have these things always been here?" He instinctively connects these miraculous lights with memories that had long since been abandoned to the lonely chasms of his shadowy mind, left to rot under the label "unimportant/insignificant." He has dinner with Andre and they discuss many things. He says things like: "how can you say something like…
Oh my god. He did it! He said inconceivable!!
Rating: one billion stars for Wallace Shawn saying inconceivable.
My favorite parts were Wallace Shawn wandering New York City, alone with his miserable thoughts. Relatable!
On my last day of physics class in my junior year of high school, my teacher Mr. Stern gave a slideshow of "Mr. Stern's Life Lessons." Everyone was done with their final, and so seemed pretty distracted, but his third life lesson really hit me.
"Being Happy isn't the same as being numb."
Junior year had been a difficult time for me and it hit me how much time I spent playing dumb games on my phone trying to numb my experiences. Six years later, and sadly I often resort to the same coping mechanism, though it comes in different forms.
My dinner with Andre is the movie-version of this effect.
In the age of social media and phones it…
[46]
Should’ve been called MY MONOLOGUE WITH ANDRÉ; there’s nothing resembling a “conversation” in the first ninety minutes—it’s just André regurgitating pseudo-philosophical fortunes and bourgeoisie life experiences, traveling in strange groups and meeting strange people and being so touched by all of it that he laments how often he’s reduced to nothing but a pile of tears and mush. Might not have such a problem with André’s long segments of run-on sentences and indulgent anecdotes were he not a completely insufferable dolt, never mind “that’s the point.” He’s the kind of person you love to hate. And maybe even that would’ve been okay had Wally been given more to do during the first hour-and-a-half than merely look inquisitive and reply…
"I just never really looked at the picture. And then, at a certain point, I realized I'd just gone for a good eighteen years unable to feel except in the most extreme situations.
I mean, to some extent, I still had the ability to live in my work, that was why I was such a work junkie, that was why I felt that every play that I did was a matter of my life or my death. But in my real life, I was dead. I was a robot. I mean, I didn't even allow myself to get angry or annoyed."