Melvin Goes to Dinner
The obvious model for ''Melvin Goes to Dinner,'' Bob Odenkirk's feature film directorial debut, is Louis Malle's 1981 film ''My Dinner With Andre,'' in which real-life theatrical friends Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory chat about weighty spiritual matters at a New York City restaurant. But Odenkirk -- one of the comedic masterminds behind HBO's sorely missed ''Mr. Show'' -- drops in on a decidedly more banal conversation among LA 30-somethings, clearly aiming for the heart and funny bone. For better and worse, he handles the material with an adventuresome spirit.
The premise is simple enough: Four acquaintances meet for dinner, share a couple bottles of wine, laugh, argue, and swap stories. Over the course of the evening, as they discuss everything from TV psychics to insomnia to (of course) sexual kinks and marital infidelity, each reveals something about himself or herself that twists the others' perceptions. Odenkirk handles the talky aspects of Michael Blieden's screenplay (adapted from his stage play ''Phyro-Giants'') by combining flashback sequences and the occasional montage of still shots to provide back stories for his characters and also to re-create their tales, sometimes with affecting results.
Melvin (played by Blieden, also the film's editor) is a slightly neurotic shut-in who's romantically involved with a woman his sister Leslie (Maura Tierney) describes as a ''malignant tumor.'' When he unintentionally phones his friend Joey (Matt Price), a jaded corporate manager he hasn't seen in months, Joey invites him to dinner. Skittish Melvin is reluctant at first but finally agrees, and soon finds himself in the company of Alex (Stephanie Courtney), a brassy gal pal and former business-school classmate of Joey's, and beautiful Sarah (Annabelle Gurwitch), an old friend Alex bumps into outside the boite and drags inside.
The technique Odenkirk borrows from Malle in filming their banter -- close-up shots in an unembellished public setting -- gives the viewer the sense of being a participant in the dialogue. His actors achieve a playful naturalism that's quite convincing, and some moments are laugh-out-loud funny. Cameos by ''Saturday Night Live'' comic David Cross, as a self-help guru, and Jack Black, as a schizophrenic convinced God is persecuting him, add to the levity and general absurdity.
But the true-to-life artifice is also Odenkirk's Achilles' heel. In the first half of the movie, the peppy chitchat comes off as overly realistic -- that is, gossipy, scatter-brained, and crudely humorous -- as though one were eavesdropping on a group of mildly annoying yuppies. Even though Odenkirk cleverly uses a nonsequential framework to create an intriguing plot arc, it's not until Melvin and company begin divulging their louche secrets that all the messy gum-flapping starts to make sense. Despite its compositional flaws, ''Melvin Goes to Dinner'' will please anyone who takes the art of social chatter seriously.
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