Beatriz at Dinner

2017 – Comedy – 1:23

Opens June 9, 2017

Directed by: Miguel Arteta

Starring: Salma Hayek, John Lithgow, Connie Britton

IMDB Link

Beatriz is invited, but not welcome. Coming from a connected but different world, Beatriz (Salma Hayek), a reiki healer-and holistic body worker, becomes the last-minute dinner guest of one of her clients after her car breaks down. The movie takes place in an elegant hilltop home in Newport Beach where she meets Doug Strutt (John Lithgow) a ruthless, self-centered billionaire real estate developer, who seems vaguely familiar to Beatriz.

Forced from her home in Mexico as a child, Beatrix discovers ways as the movie unfolds that they are connected and the many ways they are not. The evening does not go as smoothly as planned by well-meaning host, Kathy (Connie Britton). The actors are all superb and convincing in their roles, as they bring out various perspectives and views on the world. Their conversations are humorous and serious, often confronting and very often surprising,

Directed by Miguel Areta (The Good Girl) and written by Mike White (The Good Girl, “Enlightened”) this is not one of those movies with a predictable ending, or an easily explainable ending. Better to see it and decide for yourself.
Rather than provide answers or solutions that give the viewer conclusions or lead them in a certain direction, it takes you in a couple of possible directions, leaving you to think, what just happened?

At first the last part of the movie was unsettling. I wanted it all wrapped neatly. Settled. It wasn’t. It was like life. I wondered about the choices Beatriz made and thought about them. More than about different people interacting at a dinner party, it was about her life and the adjustments she had to make.

It left me thinking of the different ways and reasons people have for leaving their homes and country—and how the way we—as a country and individually—play a part in that. My perspective has shifted some. In that sense alone I think the movie was a success. It was expansive. It left me with more perspectives of how interrelated we are and viewing the consequences of some of our actions differently.

Trailer