The Dinner C1

Right (clockwise from left): Steve Coogan as Paul, Richard Gere as Stan, Rebecca Hall as Katelyn and Laura Linney as Claire. Below: Paul and Stan at the Gettysburg memorial.

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GLOSSARY

1 Dutch: holandés 2 estranged: distanciados, enemistados 3 courses: platos 4 nervous breakdown: ataque de nervios 5 resentful: resentido 6 sibling: hermano (o hermana) 7 to stand: postularse, ser candidato 8 sympathetic: empática 9 ruthless: implacable 10 unforgivable: imperdonable 11 to riff on: improvisar 12 anger: ira 13 to get in the way: interponerse 14 trust: confianza 15 shoot: rodaje 16 to shut down: cerrarse en banda 17 to back up: apoyar 18 engaging: interesante, cautivador 19 praise: elogios 20 first-rate cast: reparto de primera clase 21 riveting: fascinante 22 storyline: trama 23 to make a point: expresar algo importante 24 to sum up: resumir 25 on the whole: en conjunto

DIFFICULT TABLE TALK The Dinner

Un restaurante de lujo es el escenario en el que se desarrolla la trama de esta película con un profundo trasfondo moral. Entre plato y plato, dos hermanos y sus respectivas parejas deberán enfrentarse a una difícil decisión que hará revivir un doloroso pasado.

Based on the bestselling 2009 novel by Dutch1 writer Herman Koch, American movie The Dinner stars Steve Coogan and Richard Gere as estranged2 brothers Paul and Stan who meet for dinner with their wives Katelyn and Claire, played by Rebecca Hall and Laura Linney, at an exclusive restaurant. As the courses3 and drinks come and go, the conversation becomes ever more intense and revealing. Paul, a former history teacher who has suffered a nervous breakdown4, is deeply resentful5 of his older sibling6 Stan, a congressman standing7 for election as governor. Katelyn, Stan’s second wife, is beginning to realise why his first abandoned him, while Claire, although she seems like the most sympathetic8 of the group, becomes ruthless9 in her defence of her son Michael: a teenager who, while on a night out with his cousins Rick and Beau, has done something unforgivable10. The director of The Dinner is Israeli-American filmmaker Oren Moverman, who relocates the setting from Amsterdam to New York and uses flashback to explore incidents in the families’ pasts. At a presentation for the film, Moverman spoke about adapting Koch’s book, which has sold more than a million copies across Europe, to an American context.

Oren Moverman (Is-

raeli accent): It’s a very smart, very intelligent narrative that gave me the opportunity to riff on11 it in adapting it to an American movie. But many of those things, at least the way I read the book, were there, and then I suppose my anger12 got in the way13 and my need to express myself got into the movie.

QUESTION OF TRUST

Veteran actor Richard Gere has worked with Moverman before on Time Out of Mind, playing a homeless man. He talked about how essential it was to establish trust14 with the director and the other actors.

Richard Gere (American accent):

In the old days this would have been a forty-five-fifty day shoot15 but we’re making these difficult films very quickly now. The beginning point for me to be able to work is trust and if that’s not there my creative process just shuts down16 completely. If you don’t trust each other and know that you’re going to back each other up17, you don’t experiment.

DYNAMISING THE PLOT

British actor Steve Coogan also saw the film as a challenge, as he explained.

Steve Coogan (Eng-

lish accent): There was a lot of dialogue and a lot of words and when you read it, it was quite dense and I thought this could be very sedentary... How to make that dynamic and how to make it engaging18, I thought [it] was going to be a challenge, but ... I knew I

Turning a best-selling book into a one-and-ahalf hour film was not an easy task, as many film critics noted. There was much praise19 for the diverse choice of cast members and the significant effort of the director Oren Moverman to adapt Herman Koch’s dialogue-heavy novel. The UK Observer commented on “the first-rate cast20”, Variety calling them “a riveting21 quartet”. When it came to the storyline22 , The Independent recognised “the points Moverman is trying to make23”, while Rolling Stone appreciated the director’s approach, praising the way he used “flashbacks and tonal changes to make the book speak his language”, although The Hollywood Reporter thought the flashback approach “a bit distracting”. Common Sense Media summed up24 the film as “admirably complex and intelligent” yet also “exasperating” and incomplete. On the whole25, critics felt The Dinner to have been more a good introduction to a complex novel than fully representative of the book.

Above: a scene in Paul and Claire’s home during a visit by Barbara (Chloë Sevigny), Stan’s ex-wife. Right: Charlie Plummer as Paul and Claire’s son Michael, who commits a horrible crime.

GLOSSARY

26 bleak: desolador 27 to conflate: combinar 28 to drop out: abandonar 29 easy-going: fácil de tratar 30 airtime: tiempo en directo 31 to aim: dirigir, tener como objetivo 32 to rely: confiar 33 stand: postura 34 bankable: rentable 35 to play lead: interpretar el papel protagonista 36 blockbuster hits: éxitos de taquilla 37 to claim: afirmar 38 parts: papeles 39 fortuitous: afortunados 40 hedge fund: fondo de cobertura (banco de inversión) 41 hustler: embaucador 42 bribery: soborno was in safe hands, and then knowing who the rest of the cast were going to be, that also elevated it.

OTHER REALITIES

This is the third adaptation of Koch’s book to film. Dutch film Het Diner (2013) and Italian film I nostri ragazzi (2014) were both acclaimed, distinct versions. The Dinner explores themes such as family loyalty, prejudice, mental illness and morality in contemporary society. But as Gere points out, while its message is bleak26, it is also instructive. Richard Gere: We have to be really careful how we talk to each other and how we characterise each other. ‘Refugee’ and ‘terrorist’ means the same thing in the US now, [a] refugee used to be someone that we had empathy for, used to be someone we cared about, someone we wanted to help. Now we’re afraid of them and that’s the biggest crime in itself, conflating27 these two ideas. We’re all in this together, there’s none of us that can escape others’ realities. We’re all human beings, we have to embrace each other.

RICHARD GERE – A POLITICISED STAR

Richard Gere is one of America’s bestloved actors. Born in 1949, he is both a ladies’ man and a gay icon. Today, the seventy-one-year-old is receiving some of the best reviews of his career working with independent filmmakers. Gere was brought up in New York and excelled as a gymnast at school. On dropping out28 of university, he began acting. He was tall and handsome with an easy-going29 manner and a good head of hair, and Hollywood adored him: romantic roles in Days of Heaven (1978), American Gigolo (1980) and An Officer and a Gentleman (1982), saw him become a global star. After the hit film Pretty Woman (1990), Gere was rich and an international sex symbol. Then, in 1993, Gere surprised everyone. When asked to present an award at the Oscars, he used the airtime30 to express his horror at human rights abuses in Tibet. His criticism was aimed31 at producers who were increasingly relying32 on Chinese money to fund their projects. Gere’s stand33 was a sign that some Hollywood stars prioritised morality over money. Gere, meanwhile, continued to be bankable34 as an actor. While films such as Sommersby (1993), Primal Fear (1996) and Runaway Bride (1999) were hits, he looked for more controversial roles. He played lead35 in the action thriller The Jackal (1997) as a former IRA militant, and as a journalist in The Mothman Prophesies (2002), a paranormal thriller. Critics noted that Gere seemed comfortable in dramatic roles. Clockwise from top left: Richard Gere in American Gigolo (1980); in crime drama film The Cotton Club (1984); with Debra Winger in romantic drama film An Officer and a Gentleman (1982); in musical drama film I’m Not There (2007); with Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman (1990).

Oscar-winning musical film Chicago (2002) and Shall We Dance? (2004) were blockbuster hits36, but Gere claimed37 to be finding it difficult get good parts38 . While he co-starred in The Hunting Party (2007) and appeared as one of six actors to play Bob Dylan in I’m Not There (2007), it was not his age but the power of Chinese money in Hollywood against him, he said. Happily, his move into independent films has proved fortuitous39. Gere’s role as a hedge fund40 magnate in Arbitrage (2012) was universally praised, as was his role as a New York political hustler41 caught up in a bribery42 scandal in the film Norman (2016).