The Dinner (2017)

Jack and I didn't hate this intense ensemble drama made for Netflix about a neurotic man, his wife, and his brother and sister-in-law going to dinner, with flashbacks to the activities of the sons of each couple.

Funny man Steve Coogan (last blogged for The Trip to Spain) plays it completely straight as the tightly wound Paul, who seems ready to blow his top at any moment. The others, his wife Claire (Laura Linney -- after Nocturnal Animals she was terrific in all eleven episodes of Ozark), his brother Stan (Richard Gere -- most recently in Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer), Stan's wife Katelyn (Rebecca Hall -- last blogged for Professor Marston and the Wonder Women), and Paul and Claire's son Michael (Charlie Plummer -- most recently in these pages for All the Money in the World) are all intensely good, too.

Oren Moverman (after directing and co-writing The Messenger (Oscar-nominated for writing), he co-wrote Love & Mercy) directs from a script he adapted from the 2013 novel by Herman Koch. Apparently Koch hated this movie (the third film version of his book), walking out of a screening. Maybe the filmmakers shouldn't have changed Stan and Katelyn's names from Serge and Babette.

We saw this a month ago on a day when we started to watch a recommended comedy on Netflix (The Week Of with Chris Rock and Adam Sandler) which we hated so much we turned it off and picked this from a list of shows I had saved. There's no composer listed on imdb but here's the list of songs.

We're in agreement with Rotten Tomatoes' critics at 45% more than its audiences at 17 (the novelist agrees with them).