My Dinner with Andre

Two men have dinner in a Manhattan restaurant. That is the whole film. André talks about his years in experimental theatre, the work in the Polish forests and his mystical experiences; Wally defends his electric blanket and argues that the world is liveable through ordinary things. Louis Malle directed. André Gregory and Wallace Shawn play fictionalised versions of themselves. They wrote it together, aiming to tell Gregory's story through two opposed temperaments. Malle cut a three-hour script down to about 111 minutes. The most surprising detail is the location. It does not take place in a Manhattan restaurant: it was shot over two weeks in December 1980 at the then-vacant Jefferson Hotel in Richmond, Virginia, dressed to imitate the real Café des Artistes. Lloyd Kaufman's Troma Entertainment provided production support. Roger Ebert named it the best film of 1981 and later called it entirely devoid of clichés; his championing kept it in theatres. On a 475,000 dollar budget it grossed 5.2 million. Rotten Tomatoes sits at 93 percent, Metacritic at 83. Who it is for: viewers who count conversation itself as an event. Who it is not for: anyone wanting visual cinema. The film does not leave the table for 110 minutes and announces as much.