Review: The Dinner makes a messy meal of a complex moral dilemma

REVIEW: The Dinner has some very awkward conversations on the menu. The performances are tasty, but the story will lack flavour for some.

THEY say if life gives you lemons, you make lemonade.

In The Dinner, however, the lemons handed to brothers Stan (Richard Gere) and Paul (Steve Coogan) by their teenage sons are poisonous.

Steve Coogan and Richard Gere as brothers? That’s ambitious casting, to say the least.

Two of their boys set fire to a homeless woman camped out for the night beside an ATM. Another of their clan videoed the barbaric spectacle, and then posted it online.

A number of days has already passed since the incident. The boys are yet to be identified as suspects. There is an ever-increasing chance the kids might get away with it. But should they?

This is the ethical conundrum facing Stan (a prominent politician), Paul (a paranoid ex-academic) and their respective wives, Katelyn and Claire (Rebecca Hall and Laura Linney) as they meet at a posh restaurant to lock in a game plan.

Stan has the most to lose, and yet is the most ardent advocate for turning the kids in. Katelyn and Claire wish to protect the youngsters from a particular form of hell that awaits them in prison. Due to his erratic state of mind, Paul remains a dangerously swinging voter throughout.

The talk ain’t cheap in The Dinner. And neither is that restaurant.

The ongoing conversation must go to some very dark places, and some are more reluctant than others to face what awaits them there.

The acting here is flawless, but the prismatic story structure can make it challenging to appreciate the ensemble’s fine work.

An odd drama that never quite finds the precise rhythm required, The Dinner is admirably uncompromising on some fronts, and annoyingly compromised on others.

So think long and hard before ordering here.

Rebecca Hall can issue quite a glacial stare when she really wants to.

THE DINNER (M)

Rating: two and a half stars (2.5 out of 5)

Director: Oren Moverman (The Messenger)

Starring: Richard Gere, Laura Linney, Steve Coogan, Rebecca Hall.

Will some just desserts be on the menu?

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Originally published as Review: The Dinner makes a messy meal of a complex moral dilemma