Ivano De Matteo’s gripping drama The Dinner, loosely inspired by the eponymous bestseller by Herman Koch, explores how tragedy brings forth the hidden character of family members in a modern-day Cain and Abel allegory. Massimo and his younger brother Paolo (played by Alessandro Gassman and Luigi Lo Cascio, respectively) have a long-held history of rivalry and resentment. Nevertheless, Paolo and his wife Clara (Giovanna Mezzogiorno) meet Massimo and his wife Sofia (Barbora Bobulova) once a week for dinner at a fancy restaurant in the city. Clara doesn’t care much for the chatty and bubbly Sofia either. The two pairs continue to see each other if only as a courtesy to their teenage children, who go to the same school and share a close relationship.
Warm-hearted Paolo is a pediatric surgeon whose latest patient is a boy shot during a road rage incident. Coincidentally, his brother is the hotshot attorney representing the defendant, driving a bigger wedge between them. The impenetrable Massimo, cool and collected, stands by the law. At first, the film takes the viewpoint of Paolo and Clara and their affluent, yet cozy home life, which lies in stark contrast to the other couple’s minimalist, office-like penthouse. It’s Massimo’s daughter Benedetta (Rosabell Laurenti Sellers) who introduces Paolo and his family, seemingly dismissing her own in favor of having dinner at her uncle’s house. There, she and cousin Michele (Jacopo Olmo Antinori) entertain themselves by watching cartoonishly violent videos online.
After the headline-making video of a brutal beating that leaves a homeless woman in a coma, Clara is disturbed by the thought that the assailants might be her troubled son and spoiled niece. This is where the plot begins to unravel the hidden stories of these two families, subverting stereotypes about good and evil, right and wrong, morality and justice. The clues that this sibling rivalry may largely be one-sided and out of jealousy become apparent when each family faces moral obligations.
Shot against the elegant and gritty city of Rome, The Dinner is a nuanced psychological film that examines how differently people, as individuals and as a couple, deal with trauma. Without judgement, the film plays with preconceived notions and stereotypes. There is a lot of foreshadowing and small details sprinkled about (when Paolo and Clara joke about his height, it seems innocent at first but later indicates crippling insecurity) that illustrate both the complicated nature of these two brothers and, when things become dire, who they really are as human beings.
