'Beatriz At Dinner' A Review

Beatriz At Dinner is a dramedy about Beatriz(Salma Hayek) an alternative healer/masseuse whose car breaks down at an affluent client's house. Kathy(Connie Britton), the hostess, invites Beatriz to stay for a dinner party she and her husband Grant(David Warshofsk) are throwing for his business partner Doug(John Lithgow), his wife Jeana(Amy Landecker), and an ambitious up-incoming couple Alex(Jay Duplass) and Shannon(Chloë Sevigny). Tensions rise as Beatriz repeatedly confronts Doug about his manipulative and destructive business practices.

Hayek gives one of her meatiest performances since Frida and one of the most subtle of her career. She is quiet and magnetic for most of the film, contemplative and emotional, vulnerable and more drab than we're use to seeing her(although she is always striking). Her portrayal is philosophical but also grounded in the physical nature of the character's profession. There's a stolidness about it which is atypical for Hayek but her usual heart is not sacrificed. A shame the film around her amazing performance isn't nearly as cohesive. The cast is good, Britton and Lithgow specifically are great, but the film seems to waiver on what it is about and how specifically it wants to spell that out preventing the supporting cast from really soaring.

The premise seems kind of like a classic culture clash and we are primed for Beatriz to tell off and correct the rich. This kind of happens but there is no real resolution and no real change. Interspersed with this narrative which we are clearly presented with is another one, where Beatriz is swept up in dreams, memories, and presumably metaphoric imagery that is never really developed. There are two or three angles attempted in the film when only one could be successful. Instead of a class comedy. a meditative environmental commentary, or an interpersonal existential crisis we get none of these. The result is entertaining and compelling, no question, it is just more convoluted than it needs to be.

Ambitious, with a fantastic lead, if somewhat frustrating and problematic.

See It.