Tropic Sprockets / The Dinner

In what could be called “The Dinner from Hell” without sarcasm, here is a film by Oren Moverman titled “The Dinner,” based on the novel by Herman Koch. This story is a kind of moral study which sardonically borrows from Mary Harron’s “American Psycho” where waiters drift past expensive dining rooms bringing elaborate psychedelic-looking plates. Each appetizer looks like  a bejeweled treasure only fit for exclusive tongues: explosions of edible gold, ribboned with raspberry and chocolate sauces abound. The lighting in the restaurant is a deep saturated red suggesting rare meat about to be flayed.

Stan Lohman (Richard Gere) is a politician running for governor who has called his brother Paul (Steve Coogan) and his wife Claire (Laura Linney) to discuss a matter of grave importance. After terse greetings, Stan can’t get comfortable. He is a popular, Clintonesque figure and people notice him. The next table makes noise and they change rooms. Paul complains about the obsequious waiter which starts a ten minute tirade and then Stan gets a phone call, which causes a lengthy delay.

In flashbacks, there are scenes which show Paul discovering damning and obscene crime footage on his son Michael  (Charlie Plummer) through a cell phone and he takes the device. Meanwhile, Stan is still on the phone while Michael discovers that his phone is missing. Soon the entire quartet is outside with the puff-cheeked headwaiter nevertheless bringing out the ornate dishes as if sauteed in silk. The walls gradually turn into a deeper throbbing red.

This is an over-the-top story that remains compelling despite a few missteps. The progression of events are sensational and heavy, to say the least, and not for everyone.

Paul Lohman is a good role and a drastic departure for Steve Coogan, the comedian and voice actor who has made a name for himself as a quirky self deprecating soul. There is quirk here, but no fun. Boorish Paul is fine for the most part, but his mania flirts with psychosis so suddenly, it almost sent my suspension of disbelief crashing to the theater floor.

Richard Gere has another solid outing, although we don’t really get a sense of him. He worries, he frets, he simmers on the court steps. A Type A control freak, the hovering brother.

Laura Linney and Rebecca Hall are two serpents in siren’s clothes that would scare Lady Macbeth and they are excellent.

The well done black humor comes from the restaurant culture itself as endless dishes are recited and revised amid such selfish hissing between these so called adults, but a down side emerges with repulsive flashbacks that reveal what Paul’s kids have done whether you want to see or not.

“The Dinner” is a harsh course: mounds of savagery are accented with crumbs of Bret Easton Ellis, only to be suffused with what is mostly noise and high melodrama. The end sequence finely portrays the futility of it all, but only the most immovable among us will stay for a digestif that is far from settling.