‘My Dinner with Andre’ and the Brilliant Presentation of a Bland Concept

The movie breaks the rules and gets away with it. But how?

A good idea doesn’t guarantee a good story. The concept may be wonderful, but lousy execution could kill it.

The opposite is also true. The 1981 film My Dinner with Andre has a lousy concept for a movie, but wonderful execution turned it into something fascinating and unique.

I had been meaning to watch this movie ever since Community spoofed it over a decade ago. After a reminder on Notes, I finally made some time for it.

Andre talks a lot.

For the bulk of the movie, we watch two old friends having a long conversation while eating dinner at a nice restaurant. There’s some storytelling within their conversation, but we never cut away to see those stories in action. The dinner is not a framing device; it’s just a conversation. If made today, this would be Podcast: The Movie. I’d love to know how they pitched this script, because that’s basically it.

Andre Gregory and Wallace Shawn wrote the script and play the leads. They named the characters after themselves, but they’re not necessarily playing themselves. Wally is a playwright who’s previously worked with director Andre; however, Andre has been out of touch for a long time and Wally has hesitated to reconnect.

I kept expecting some conflict to reveal itself, escalate, and eventually blow up, but no. The two men simply have an interesting and engaging conversation with some polite differences of opinion along the way. The movie creates some tension between the two, but it’s not a protagonist/antagonist dynamic in any traditional sense.

Directed by Louis Malle, My Dinner with Andre initially looks like it should be a play. Talking-heads movies generally are a better fit for theatre, but this movie has barely any blocking once it gets going. Andre and Wally sit down at the table and stay seated until nearly the end. A waiter occasionally interacts with them, and we see glimpses of other staff and diners. It’s not an obviously visual movie.

However, as the conversation deepens, the camera gradually closes in on Andre and Wally, and nearly everything beyond their table fades away without us even realizing it. It’s a subtle effect that’s best suited for film. It shows how present the characters are with each other as they become increasingly engrossed in their conversation.

And it is an engrossing conversation that covers a variety of topics. Perception and curiosity are recurring themes—how we get so focused on some specific goal that we wind up seeing little else and wondering about little else. Our awareness becomes surface-level and incomplete; we go through the motions on autopilot.

At one point, Wally mentions his electric blanket and the comfort it provides on cold nights. Andre, however, says he wouldn’t trust such a blanket, not only because of the possibility of electrocution but also because “that kind of comfort just separates you from reality in a very direct way.” What kind of creatures are we if not even the seasons can affect us anymore?

Later, Andre describes a conversation he had about New York—specifically about why residents never seem to leave New York even if they say they want to—and he shares a new perspective he heard:

“They’ve built their own prison, so they exist in a state of schizophrenia. They’re both guards and prisoners, and as a result they no longer have, having been lobotomized, the capacity to leave the prison they’ve made, or to even see it as a prison.”

The movie doesn’t push us to agree or disagree with any viewpoint expressed by either character. Viewers can decide for themselves whether they lean more toward Wally’s pragmatism and contentment with simple pleasures or more toward Andre’s concerns about humanity becoming less human. Or maybe even toward parts of both. The two men do agree with each other at times, too.

The conversation flows organically, allowing the viewer to lose track of time just as the characters do. Both writers/actors imbue their characters with consistent verbal tics and mannerisms, solidifying them as people rather than mouthpieces—and without any of it ever becoming distracting. For example, multiple times Wally mentions not knowing how to even begin talking about something, then delves right into that very topic, as a person might in such a situation.

The success of this movie is … oh, what’s the word …?

Shawn and Gregory take great care in crafting these characters. The movie may not have much plot or overt conflict, but it does have character development. By the end, we have a clear sense of who each man is.

That thoughtful character development allows the movie to get away with its lack of plot. The characters feel real. The dialogue sounds authentic. And that’s enough to carry us through to closing.

The film possesses a timeless quality. The ideas remain relevant. You could rewatch it at different points in your life and probably pick up something different.

Plus, a fun fact for my fellow Virginians: The movie was filmed in the Jefferson Hotel in Richmond.

My Dinner with Andre breaks many rules but still succeeds. Two guys sitting at a table and talking for over an hour should not work. The movie even opens with voice-over narration, which is generally frowned upon for good reason. The whole thing should have come across as a pretentious slog. But I never got bored.

This doesn’t mean the rules don’t matter. They do. The fundamentals of storytelling are fundamental for a reason. Diverge from them at your peril. Breaking the rules can make for an interesting experiment, but most of those experiments will fail to yield anything watchable or readable.

However, if anyone dogmatically insists that breaking the rules never works, then I’ll tell them about My Dinner with Andre.