My Dinner With Andre (1981)

IMDb plot summary: Two old friends meet for dinner; as one tells anecdotes detailing his experiences, the other notices their differing worldviews.

Directed by Louis Malle. Starring Andre Gregory and Wallace Shawn.

This is a slow, talky, philosophical movie, which sometimes is EXACTLY the kind of thing I love. This one... definitely falls a little flat. I think I attribute that to Andre Gregory's demeanor more than anything. As he shares, he frequently comes across as one of those smug people who is sure they have all the answers and looks down with pity on the poor plebes who don't get it yet. Combine that with the fact that his journey to find himself dances REAL close to the "poverty tourism" line, and we just get a character I loathe. You can absolutely do talky philosophy movies -- Waking Life and Before Sunrise, both by Richard Linklater, excel at this. But you have to want to be around those characters and listen to them talk and find their ideas captivating, and I found Gregory so off-putting that it was a constant mental effort to focus away from him as a person and listen to his ideas at all. A mismatch for me.

How it entered my Flickchart:

My Dinner With Andre < Broken Embraces

My Dinner With Andre < The Best Years of Our Lives

My Dinner With Andre > Special

My Dinner With Andre > Rancho Notorious

My Dinner With Andre > Bedtime Story

My Dinner With Andre > Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World

My Dinner With Andre < Lilo & Stitch

My Dinner With Andre > Little Manhattan

My Dinner With Andre > Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

My Dinner With Andre > Kelly's Heroes

My Dinner With Andre < It's Always Fair Weather

Final spot: #2482 out of 3272, or 24%.