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Dir. Louis Malle
Rating: 7.6 | 0 User Reviews | Send to Friend
As far as high-concepts go, Andre would be a hard-sell even in this, the post-"Seinfeld" years. It's a film about two men having dinner and enjoying a deep discussion about art, society, our place in the world, and electric blankets. Period. End of story. They meet, talk, eat, talk some more, and depart each other's company. What the quick synopsis doesn't indicate, though, is that those particular two men, Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory, are both utterly fascinating subjects, and the film, expertly helmed by auteur Louis Malle, leads you down divergent paths of discourse that never cease to capture your attention. In short, you aren't watching two dudes as they eat dinner and bitch about their lives as if from another table. As Malle positions his audience, you are sitting with them (and through Shawn's inner narrative, sometimes inside their heads) as they philosophize about theater and art in general, argue back and forth about creature comforts (Gregory, it has to be said, is, at times, a bit condescending to his friend on the subject: "the main thing, Wally, is that I think that kind of comfort just separates you from reality in a very direct way"). Part of the magic of the film is the two actors playing themselves are very much integrated into the fabric of the construction. Shawn, a gifted actor and playwright, who would go on to achieve his greatest fame as Vizzini in 1987's The Princess Bride, and Gregory, also an actor and director, who appeared in The Mosquito Coast and The Last Temptation of Christ, stay within their own myopic selves, so the conversation -- as calculated and planned out as an invasion -- has the air of being free, natural and totally unrehearsed. In the beginning, it is clear both friends are fallen on hard times -- Shawn is struggling to find roles, Gregory is often consumed by a debilitating depression -- but their conversation veers from their own experiences to general questions of being without ever feeling forced. We are made to feel as if we were included, enjoying the company of old friends we hadn't seen for a while. In the end, everyone goes home feeling better about things. Their dining pas de deux has become our own.
This new Criterion release also includes updated interviews with the two stars by filmmaker Noah Baumbach; a Shawn interview with director Malle; an essay on the film by critic Amy Taubin and a beautiful, new digital transfer.
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