Dinner with Friends

Dinner with Friends is somewhat unusual. Perhaps I''m just not as well-versed as I thought, but I haven't seen other movies about two couples that are friends, one splits up and its effect on the other couple.

This movie obviously originates as a stage play as it consists of four people sitting around and talking. As such, you can only make it so interesting, visually.

Because of this, the movie relies pretty much exclusively on the dialog and actors to make things interesting, and they mostly deliver. There were a few moments where the acting seemed very stage-style, for lack of a better term, but still decent overall.

I would caution you that you won't like this movie if you can't connect with the source material. It's a study of marriages and why some work and others don't as well as the effects of a divorce on friends. I would recommend it mostly to people who have had long- term relationships and/or are interested in them.

TV may be mostly a wasteland these days, but every once in a while, a fine original film shows up on the tube. `Dinner With Friends' is certainly in that category. It takes the viewer deeply into the relationship between two couples and within each. They were best friends until one of the marriages hits the rocks. We see each side of that split and how it affects the other couple. Initially, sides seem to be taken along gender lines, but that reverses as each member of the separating couple finds new relationships. Is it fatal to the other marriage? Watch and see.

The opening scene of this film is very good, with equal parts humor, pathos, agony and sympathy. Problem is, it gets progressively worse as it goes along, and in the end, it just ... ends. It's as if the script writer(s) indiscriminately decided that it was a good place to write "The End" and say the hell with it.

In a long series of original HBO movies, the predecessor being "WIT". "Dinner With Friends" turned out to be one of the best dramatic shows HBO has produced. First of all to get a top-notch director such as Norman Jewison and Pulitzer Prize winning play to work with, they were ahead before they began. All four major stars, Quaid, Kinnear, MacDowell, and Collette more than succeeded with their tasks, but it was the two long scenes between Greg and Dennis that raised this show to greater heights. Greg Kinnear has come so far in such a short time as an actor and he can hold his own with anybody now. I think I've seen every film Dennis Quaid has made and "DWF" is his finest work to date. If you've ever worked as a professional actor or director, you know that the easiest scene to play is "anger" and the most difficult is maintaining an audience's interest while you're playing low-key drama. The low-key counterplay and interaction between these two men was superb! It was often said of the late Geraldine Page that she could act in a whole movie or a three act play and know everything she was thinking if she had NO dialogue. Quaid and Kinnear were excellent listeners and responded to each other in the same way as Page. Besides the rich and powerful screenplay, the icing on the piece was placed with Dave Grusin's melodic score, a-la "The Fabulous Baker Boys". The 90+ minute movie ran the gamut of emotion for its audience. I was moved from tears to laughing out loud and anger to surprise. I only hope when next years Emmy nominations are announced, people will still remember this film in August 2001. Dennis Quaid and Greg Kinnear should be at the top of the list. Thumbs UP and four solid stars!

Two couples, upper middle class and no financial problems: four friends. They marry at about the same time, each have two kids, they spend a lot of time together, *best* friends... And then, one of them split up.

The movie, by the way of dialogs, shows how each of the four's world is shaken up, as their unspoken contract, namely, to raise their kids together, to grow old together, is broken. Questions: Whose fault is the breakup, husband's or wife's? Which couple has it right: those, who stick to marriage or those who break out of the rut? Who has the right to judge: those who keep to their marriage vows, or those who acknowledge that their relationship has been a lie? Can we demand that our friends always tell us the truth? How do we react when our closest friends question the unspoken foundations of our lives? The movie follows the actions and reactions of our characters in this situation. Nobody is right, nobody is wrong. In a way, everybody is right. That is what makes the movie interesting. The men act the way men act, and the women act the way women act. The questions are not really answered, they are debated, and the movie shows that completely grown-up people are really unable to answer them.

I liked the performances of the actors. Andie McDowell was as beautiful as she always is. I also liked the two guys. The environment, the camera, etc. seemed just right. But the most interesting were the dialogs. So, if you like movies in which people investigate themselves, their lives, and their relationships, without giving you a definite answer what to do, you may enjoy this movie.