Beatriz at Dinner

source: Beatriz at Dinner

I am a healer, spiritual and vegetarian. Now, one that knows reiki and all the therapies she mentioned, knows the universal laws. She is breaking every single one of them. She is everything but a healer. So, having said that, it makes me kind of wonder what on earth the maker of this movie was thinking. One that believes in the afterlife doe not commit suicide, as they know the principles behind it. It's actually offending this movie. All the other characters were in sync with real life. The typical money and ego driven people that don't think of anything but themselves and superficial stuff. So we have Salma Hayek playing a crazy person pretending to be spiritual and a healer, yet does anything but, in her behavior. This film maker should have not touched a subject they know nothing about, it makes it silly and pathetic. So I cannot do anything else but to rate this movie a 1 out of 10. The poor man should change his job!

"Beatriz at Dinner" (2017) was directed by Miguel Arteta. It stars Salma Hayek as Beatriz. Beatriz is an immigrant from Mexico, who is a healer. She uses massage, Rekhi, and many other alternative therapies to help her clients. She is a sensitive, caring person. One of her clients is Kathy (Connie Britton), a very wealthy trophy wife. When Beatriz's car breaks down at Kathy's house, Beatriz is invited to join a dinner party with two more couples--two men with their trophy wives. One of the men is Doug Strutt, (John Lithgow), a very, very wealthy man. Strutt represents the type of man that does evil things to his workers and to the planet. He's very good at what he does, and makes a fortune doing it. He knows what damage he is causing, and has absolutely no regrets. Naturally, a confrontation occurs at dinner between Beatriz and Doug. What happens next is the plot of the movie. The problem with the film for me is that all the characters--obviously, other than Beatriz--are stereotypes of rich people. Even despicable rich people must have some conscience somewhere. (At least I hope they do. I don't know any super-rich people.) Another problem is the setup of the film. If a car has trouble starting once, and even more trouble starting a second time, you know that it's going not going to start the third time. Also, Beatriz drinks too many glasses of wine. A healer like her probably wouldn't do that. (That's my judgment.) However, the drinking weakens the plot because it's not clear whether Beatriz would have spoken out the way she does if she weren't drunk. Beatriz is supposed to be determined and self-reliant. She shouldn't need alcohol as an excuse for expressing her opinion. Both Hayek and Lithgow are excellent actors, and they play their parts well. I kept thinking that there was a great movie in there somewhere, but director Arteta didn't know how to bring it out. So, it ended up being a pretty good movie, but not a great movie. I'm glad we saw this film, but I can only recommend it up to a point. It has an anemic IMDb rating of 6.5, which I think is too low. I considered rating it 7, but I gave it an 8 because Salma Hayek does so well in portraying Beatriz. The movie has some beautiful outdoor shots, but it will work well enough on the small screen. There are some better films out there, but there are also some that are much worse. See "Beatriz" and decide for yourself.

I'm a great fan of Miguel Arteta and Mike White's work. They travel a road that will take us to unusual places. I don't know if unusual is the right word because all of a sudden everything seems familiar, perhaps is the way Arteta and White got us there that is unusual. Opposite worlds sitting at the same table. Selma Hayek is wonderful and every though that crosses her heart and mind is perfectly visible to us. John Lithgow finds a new and disturbing face to his gallery of startling characters and Connie Britton is sublime as the hostess walking a thin line between empathy and something else. Wow! It really grabbed me and shook me. So, a highly recommended movie trying to survive in a sea of Avengers and remakes. Bravo!

How the heck did this movie get this high of a rating? This is by far one of the WORST movies I have seen in my LIFE. What the heck is this movie even about? A depressed and psychotic Mexican woman who feels sorry for all the animals and humans who aren't loved and well-treated? A nutcase who wants to murder a rich, rude, White guy who only cares about money? And then kills herself by jumping into the ocean? In real life I wouldn't even let someone like this crazy nut enter my premises, much less eat dinner with me and my important guests! What a pathetic imbecilic movie. Don't waste your time watching this piece of crap. This is by far one of the WORST movies I have seen in my LIFE. So much for ratings on IMDb.

Beatriz at Dinner sells itself as the "first important film of the Trump Era," a galvanizing must-see sparring between two embodiment's of the modern American political landscape. In the blue corner the genteel, multi-cultural, bilingual immigrant Beatriz (Hayek) and the red, the boorish super-rich real-estate mogul Doug Strutt (Lithgow). Who will come out on top? Surely not the audience. The optimal title for this movie should have been Beatriz and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. She begins her morning feeding her dogs and calming her bleating pet lamb before driving down to work at a ramshackle clinic in downtown L.A.. She claims to be a healer - massage, reiki, rolfing - the kind of stuff that would sound like hokum if Beatriz wasn't so emphatically a believer. Her last task of the day involves a long drive to Malibu to meet with a wealthy client. Her car dies on the driveway, thus her hosts reluctantly invite her to a dinner they are throwing to celebrate a new business venture. The movie's rising action unfolds largely as you would expect. The slight misreading of social cues and awkward culture clashes turn into a snowballing array of devilishly clever faux pas. The dinner itself, while never quite as caustic as it should be, nevertheless showcases the characters as a menagerie of conflicting personalities all containing themselves to conform to social graces. Then much like Beatriz after one too many glasses of white wine, the movie just seems to forget itself. It sidesteps the character dynamics it so lovingly created and all but deflates any chance of investment. Beatriz and Doug by this point are no longer human but pallid adversarial mouthpieces that don't even talk at one another but through one another. And they do so in the most sanctimonious of ways, diluting what and how they think in the form of talking-points that'd be better served on someone's back bumper. "All tears flow from the same source;" "what the world needs is jobs;" "the world is dying;" "there's way more satisfaction in building things." These are the kinds of grandiose statements you can expect from this movie, dispensed like oh so many socio-political McNuggets. By the end of the evening, it becomes clear that director Miguel Arteta and screenwriter Mike White have a thematic endgame in mind. What results is a conclusion that no doubt feels forced and too little too late, though given the film's lack of plot, it should get brownie points for actually getting us there. But once we do get there, the shallow vanity, vitriolic banter and the ever present power dynamics all seem to be beside the point. Much like Blue State (2007), Fast Food Nation (2006) and other such movies, Beatriz at Dinner isn't really a movie so much as it is an overt statement that forgot the cameras were rolling. Have we seriously gotten to the point where we have forgotten how to do satire? Given the high-concept, Beatriz at Dinner could have been a less sophomoric version of The Last Supper (1995) with flutters of Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972) painted in for good measure. Instead we're given a film that's just not enough of anything. It's not aggressive enough, its not satirical enough, it's not nuanced enough - heck it's not even sanctimonious enough! It's sits there in a drunken fugue, angrily seething before ambling away in a worrisome state. If I were you, I wouldn't encourage movies like this by following it.

Greetings again from the darkness. The movie industry frequently sources societal worries, concerns, issues and hot topics. It's been less than 6 months, but here come the anti-Trump movies. Of course some will have clever disguises for their message, while others will slap us across the face. This re-teaming of The Good Girl director Miguel Arteta and writer Mike White actually uses both approaches. Salma Hayek stars as Beatriz, a masseuse and holistic healer, who comes awfully close to being an angel on earth … unless she's guzzled a bit too much white wine. Beatriz fights southern California traffic in her clunky VW as she rushes from her gig at the cancer center to Cathy's (Connie Britton) Orange County cliffside mansion. See, Cathy is hosting a dinner party for her husband's (David Warshofsky) business associates and she simply must have her massage prior to such a stressful event – after all, she did plan the menu. When Beatriz's car stalls in Cathy's driveway, she is invited to stay for the dinner party. Things get awkward once the actual guests arrive. Alex (Jay Duplass) and his wife Shannon (Chloe Sevigny) are the young, entitled types so enticed by the fancy house and global traveling lifestyles on which they are on the brink. It should be noted that Mr. Duplass cleans up nicely and Ms. Sevigny spends much of the movie smiling – a look for which she's not normally associated. The real squirming occurs once Doug Strutt (John Lithgow) and his shallow third wife Jenna (Amy Landecker, "Transparent") arrive. Beatriz and Strutt are polar opposites with contrasting lifestyles and character. She is a mystical presence with a deep connection to Mother Earth and all living beings. He is the Trump-like figure – charismatic, manipulating and laser-focused on the brass ring. She coddles her pet goat in her bedroom to protect it from a crazy neighbor, while he ignores the rare birds nesting on the valuable land he wants scraped for his newest development. It's by no means a superhero movie, but Beatriz is presented as a Mexican-born working class (minimal make-up, functional clothing and shoes) Wonder Woman, while Strutt is the ultra villain out to destroy the planet, one rhinoceros at a time. She views him as "The Source" of Earth's pain, while he tries to laugh her off as a novelty act. It's Cathy and her husband who are most taken aback by the direct words of Beatriz, as they have considered her a "family friend" since she helped their daughter through a health scare. How dare she ruin their dinner party! There is a beautiful aerial shot of the Orange County mega-mansions, but most of the uncomfortable moments are derived through the ongoing duel of angelic Beatriz vs. the poisonous topics of politics and profit. There is no subtlety in the message, but having two talented actors go head to head, does make it more palatable.

Selma Hayek plays Beatriz a masseuse with a cordial relationship to a wealthy California socialite (Connie Britton as Kathy). When her car breaks down, Kathy suggests she stay for their dinner party. Kathy's husband (David Warhofsky) begrudgingly agrees in hopes that Beatriz will stay out of the way of his big client but chaos ensues when the big client, Doug Strutt (John Lithgow), proves to be an unapologetic blowhard and Beatriz turns out to be more expressive than expected. To make matters worse, Strutt might have built a hotel in Beatriz's Mexican hometown that demolished the local economy. It's a clash of one of the haves and someone who was born out of the have-not sector and it's every bit as cringe-inducingly glorious as you would imagine if you like that style of humor. Mike White (who has done a lot of interesting work including the TV show "Enlightened") writes an excellent screenplay that brings out the tension beautifully. A couple of major reviews have criticized the film for hitting its viewers over the head with class and race symbolism, but it's themes of the awkwardness inherent in dinner parties and other social gatherings among unfamiliar people of different stations is universal. Connie Britton does great work as a legitimately compassionate person who just happens to be caught between two opposite personalities.

Written by Mike White, Beatriz at Dinner completes an unofficial trilogy with the screenwriter's Year of the Dog and the HBO series Enlightened. All three of these works are about middle aged women searching for relevance in modern society via politics. This one is a bit smaller in scale, a bit less comedic, but it shares a lot of traits with the other film and TV series. Salma Hayek stars (and is fantastic) as a holistic healer and masseuse. She is called to a rich client's home, where her car breaks down after the job. Stuck there overnight, she is invited by the client (Connie Britton) to stay overnight and dine at their party. There's a bit of fish-out-of-water comedy here, but it's more painfully awkward than funny, and the class issues are at time gut wrenching. One of the other guests is a rich mogul (John Lithgow), whom Hayek seems to know from the past. Perhaps fate has brought them together for a reason? Lithgow is an obvious stand-in for Donald Trump. Frankly, all the wealthy characters, even the relatively friendly Britton, are despicable, but White doesn't do much to stack the deck against them. They certainly don't speak in any way that feels egregiously unfair. Lithgow definitely chews into the role, but, hey, so does Donald Trump. I'm not entirely satisfied with the ending, and I would say this is the weakest of the trilogy, but it's easily the most thoughtful and most thought-provoking film I've seen all summer. 8/10.

Selma is perfectly cast, and captivating as usual. This movie is beyond categorizing -- as dark or political or racial, or anything else. If you still have the nature part of your human nature still alive within you, you'll 'get' this movie.