Beatriz at Dinner (2017)

Beatriz at Dinner sells itself as the "first important film of the Trump Era," a galvanizing must-see sparring between two embodiment's of the modern American political landscape. In the blue corner the genteel, multi-cultural, bilingual immigrant Beatriz (Hayek) and the red, the boorish super-rich real-estate mogul Doug Strutt (Lithgow). Who will come out on top? Surely not the audience.

The optimal title for this movie should have been Beatriz and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. She begins her morning feeding her dogs and calming her bleating pet lamb before driving down to work at a ramshackle clinic in downtown L.A.. She claims to be a healer - massage, reiki, rolfing - the kind of stuff that would sound like hokum if Beatriz wasn't so emphatically a believer. Her last task of the day involves a long drive to Malibu to meet with a wealthy client. Her car dies on the driveway, thus her hosts reluctantly invite her to a dinner they are throwing to celebrate a new business venture.

The movie's rising action unfolds largely as you would expect. The slight misreading of social cues and awkward culture clashes turn into a snowballing array of devilishly clever faux pas. The dinner itself, while never quite as caustic as it should be, nevertheless showcases the characters as a menagerie of conflicting personalities all containing themselves to conform to social graces.

Then much like Beatriz after one too many glasses of white wine, the movie just seems to forget itself. It sidesteps the character dynamics it so lovingly created and all but deflates any chance of investment. Beatriz and Doug by this point are no longer human but pallid adversarial mouthpieces that don't even talk at one another but through one another. And they do so in the most sanctimonious of ways, diluting what and how they think in the form of talking-points that'd be better served on someone's back bumper. "All tears flow from the same source;" "what the world needs is jobs;" "the world is dying;" "there's way more satisfaction in building things." These are the kinds of grandiose statements you can expect from this movie, dispensed like oh so many socio-political McNuggets.

By the end of the evening, it becomes clear that director Miguel Arteta and screenwriter Mike White have a thematic endgame in mind. What results is a conclusion that no doubt feels forced and too little too late, though given the film's lack of plot, it should get brownie points for actually getting us there. But once we do get there, the shallow vanity, vitriolic banter and the ever present power dynamics all seem to be beside the point. Much like Blue State (2007), Fast Food Nation (2006) and other such movies, Beatriz at Dinner isn't really a movie so much as it is an overt statement that forgot the cameras were rolling.

Have we seriously gotten to the point where we have forgotten how to do satire? Given the high-concept, Beatriz at Dinner could have been a less sophomoric version of The Last Supper (1995) with flutters of Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972) painted in for good measure. Instead we're given a film that's just not enough of anything. It's not aggressive enough, its not satirical enough, it's not nuanced enough - heck it's not even sanctimonious enough! It's sits there in a drunken fugue, angrily seething before ambling away in a worrisome state. If I were you, I wouldn't encourage movies like this b

Fmovies: "Beatriz at Dinner" (2017) was directed by Miguel Arteta. It stars Salma Hayek as Beatriz. Beatriz is an immigrant from Mexico, who is a healer. She uses massage, Rekhi, and many other alternative therapies to help her clients. She is a sensitive, caring person. One of her clients is Kathy (Connie Britton), a very wealthy trophy wife.

When Beatriz's car breaks down at Kathy's house, Beatriz is invited to join a dinner party with two more couples--two men with their trophy wives. One of the men is Doug Strutt, (John Lithgow), a very, very wealthy man.

Strutt represents the type of man that does evil things to his workers and to the planet. He's very good at what he does, and makes a fortune doing it. He knows what damage he is causing, and has absolutely no regrets. Naturally, a confrontation occurs at dinner between Beatriz and Doug. What happens next is the plot of the movie.

The problem with the film for me is that all the characters--obviously, other than Beatriz--are stereotypes of rich people. Even despicable rich people must have some conscience somewhere. (At least I hope they do. I don't know any super-rich people.)

Another problem is the setup of the film. If a car has trouble starting once, and even more trouble starting a second time, you know that it's going not going to start the third time. Also, Beatriz drinks too many glasses of wine. A healer like her probably wouldn't do that. (That's my judgment.) However, the drinking weakens the plot because it's not clear whether Beatriz would have spoken out the way she does if she weren't drunk. Beatriz is supposed to be determined and self-reliant. She shouldn't need alcohol as an excuse for expressing her opinion.

Both Hayek and Lithgow are excellent actors, and they play their parts well. I kept thinking that there was a great movie in there somewhere, but director Arteta didn't know how to bring it out. So, it ended up being a pretty good movie, but not a great movie.

I'm glad we saw this film, but I can only recommend it up to a point. It has an anemic IMDb rating of 6.5, which I think is too low. I considered rating it 7, but I gave it an 8 because Salma Hayek does so well in portraying Beatriz. The movie has some beautiful outdoor shots, but it will work well enough on the small screen. There are some better films out there, but there are also some that are much worse. See "Beatriz" and decide for yourself.

Selma Hayek plays Beatriz a masseuse with a cordial relationship to a wealthy California socialite (Connie Britton as Kathy). When her car breaks down, Kathy suggests she stay for their dinner party. Kathy's husband (David Warhofsky) begrudgingly agrees in hopes that Beatriz will stay out of the way of his big client but chaos ensues when the big client, Doug Strutt (John Lithgow), proves to be an unapologetic blowhard and Beatriz turns out to be more expressive than expected. To make matters worse, Strutt might have built a hotel in Beatriz's Mexican hometown that demolished the local economy.

It's a clash of one of the haves and someone who was born out of the have-not sector and it's every bit as cringe-inducingly glorious as you would imagine if you like that style of humor.

Mike White (who has done a lot of interesting work including the TV show "Enlightened") writes an excellent screenplay that brings out the tension beautifully. A couple of major reviews have criticized the film for hitting its viewers over the head with class and race symbolism, but it's themes of the awkwardness inherent in dinner parties and other social gatherings among unfamiliar people of different stations is universal.

Connie Britton does great work as a legitimately compassionate person who just happens to be caught between two opposite personalities.

Beatriz at Dinner fmovies. I was misled by the comedy/drama label on this film. There is nothing funny about it. It might be sly or ironic, but it's definitely not comedy! Both Hayek and Lithgow have done better work elsewhere.

I liked this film a whole lot. And yes, perhaps some of the characters are a bit obvious, the story a bit contrived in having combative protagonists attending the same dinner party. I'll give that to those who dislike this film. But Beatriz has something to say, it says it in a dramatic, well-timed, rapidly moving way. The characters played by Selma Hayek and John Lithgow could have been over-the-top, but they're not; a certain humanity peeks through even in Lithgow's villain, an attempt at calming herself is evident in Hayek's manner. . The characters who sit between Hayek's and Lithgow's extremes are easy to identify with; I was embarrassed to see much of my wise-cracking young self in the young real estate developer. Some reviewers have found fault with the film's closing act, calling it too ambiguous, or a choice of ambiguity over resolution. Not I. I found the ending perfect. Easy to understand and believable. Finally - and this is really important - I do love Selma Hayek.

I honestly had no idea what to expect since I had read nothing about the story line other than Connie Britton was in it and she was being honored at the Maui Film Festival. I was pleasantly surprised with the story line and cast of actors. I loved the unexpected twist towards the end and appreciate such a raw, true to real current life film. Disregard the negative reviews and see this movie with an open mind--- the best way to watch a movie and experience life anyway ;)