Never Go In Against a Theater Director When Death Is On the Line

I first saw My Dinner With Andre 10 years ago. It was part of a double feature with My Breakfast With Blassie, a film that's better in theory than in reality. I loved Andre so much at the time that I had been dying to see it again for all these years, always wondering if it would hold up to my fevered memory of its brilliance and I'm glad to say it did.

And once again, you've somehow managed to work Blassie into the mix.

True. I didn't even realise that but what an odd coincidence. My coworker recently let me borrow his copy of the amazing "Listen You Pencil Neck Geeks." It's the autobiography of "Classy" Freddy Blassie and it's an incredible story, not only of a bizarre and wonderful personality who was involved with professional wrestling for over 50 years but also a history of the sport itself from the 1930s into the WWE era of the 2000s. I can't recommend it highly enough. It has little to do with the movie at hand, other than a brief mention, but it is interesting how Blassie has popped up again along with my re-evaluation of Andre.

And how did it fare this time around?

As good as I had hoped and it was as riveting as I remembered. Wallace Shawn is such an odd, miserable-seeming bird and a perfect foil for the charismatic and chatty Andre Gregory who for all his quirks and dalliances and searching seems to be much more self-assured and satisfied than Wallace. Andre spends the first 40 minutes of the movie basically in monologue telling story after story of his crisis of faith (with the theater being his religion), his subsequent meltdown and finally his journey to find an answer to a question he doesn't know how to ask. It comes off as new-agey bullshit and more than a bit pretentious but he's self aware enough to know it sounds this way which tempers the nausea it could easily create in the viewer. And Wallace is such a perfect stand in for the audience, simultaneously intrigued and repulsed by the stories Andre conjures up.

I felt exactly the same way. I kept wondering when he would shut up and let Wallace have a chance to offer up his opinion but he kept prattling on and on with another ludicrous tale after another. As annoying as it could be at times I never tired of his stories and wanted to hear more, waiting to see where this journey was leading.

He's an engaging personality and can certainly spin a yarn as evidenced by his harrowing and heart racing Halloween story that was just as powerful upon the second viewing. It's not a movie for everyone but if you like conversation and "big" questions and storytelling, it's got a lot to offer.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I loved it and give it a 9. The constant shifting of tone and incredibly varied subject matter sucked me right in. The questions they bring up (Do the rules of life apply to artists? How does one go about cutting out the noise in life? Are we just living out performances instead of our real lives? Are we really living? Are we robots? Are we dead inside?) are good ones and I love that they didn't offer any solutions, instead talking around and around and around. They ultimately end the conversation and leave the restaurant only because the check has come and not because they discovered any answers to these nagging issues.

As self-serious as it seems, it's actually incredibly funny, too. Andre has a good sense of humour about the ridiculous stories he tells and Wallace Shawn is always good for a laugh whether he's perturbed by the tales he's hearing from his former mentor or getting worked up about feeling guilty for taking pleasure in the simple joys of life like reading the morning paper and enjoying a cup of coffee. And even if the material isn't enough to hold your attention, you can always take a nap during it like Freddie Blassie did when he saw it in the theatre. You're in good company either way.