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There are moments in “The Dinner,” Oren Moverman’s tense drama based on the Herman Koch novel, in which you sit back and watch four terrific actors go at it. There just aren’t enough of them. The film, in which two brothers and their families deal with a near-unimaginable crisis involving their children, is gripping when Richard Gere, Laura Linney, Steve Coogan and Rebecca Hall are sitting (sometimes) in an insanely pretentious restaurant (“It takes three months to get a reservation!”), discussing in tones that range from falsely pleasant to acid-dripping, their problem.
Or, as is often the case, when they aren’t. Avoiding the subject is something this bunch is good at.
The dinner takes place at the insistence of Stan Lohman (Gere), a congressman running for governor while trying to secure enough votes for a mental-health funding bill. In the middle of all this, he summons to the restaurant his wife, Katelyn (Hall); his brother, Paul (Coogan); and Paul’s wife, Claire (Linney). It goes without saying that he doesn’t have to wait for a reservation.
Paul hates the idea, hates the excess, hates the expense (even though he’s not paying) and seems like he probably hates his brother. Paul is a former teacher whose knowledge of the Civil War, in particular the Battle of Gettysburg, borders on the obsessive, and sometimes crosses that line. He and Katelyn arrive first, and Paul’s put-downs of the overly loving descriptions of each course, delivered by the host (Michael Chernus), are both a welcome shot at the 1 percent and genuinely uncomfortable; the guy is a jerk.
Stan and Katelyn arrive, albeit in stages. Stan’s assistant, Nina (Adepero Oduye), can’t stop dragging her boss back to his phone, trying to massage another representative’s vote his way. Of course this further enrages Paul.
All this is terrific, with a tension that pokes at your gut. Unfortunately, we often leave the restaurant due to the way the story is structured. Through flashbacks and phone calls and other diversions, we learn what has happened with Stan and Paul’s teenage sons, and it is horrific, not just in the actions themselves but in the casual excusemaking from the boys and, to varying degrees, their parents. The disregard for anyone but themselves is appalling, and absolutely believable.
This, too, is compelling. But Moverman also takes us on a tour of Paul’s life and mental state. It’s an attempt to fill us in on the character, to tell us why he acts the way he does, perhaps. But every time we are in Paul’s classroom, where his behavior becomes increasingly erratic, we are not at that dinner table, where the real action is taking place.
All the actors are outstanding, and their characters evolve, even as the next course arrives. When you think you have them figured out, something will change, and you wonder if you really know them at all.
A note about the food: seriously? It is obscene, and when Stan picks up the check you wish he’d say how much it all costs. He’s far too polished for that, of course. Like so much else in the film, it’s just another bill to be paid, no matter what the cost.