BEATRIZ AT DINNER – We Need to Talk: Opens at AFS Cinema This Week 6/22

Every once in a while a movie like BEATRIZ AT DINNER comes along and says, “we need to talk.” In the midst of the seismic political, cultural and, yes, spiritual forces that quake around us now, we certainly do need to talk. And talk is what Salma Hayek’s Beatriz and John Lithgow’s Doug Strutt do in this provocative, insightful and even funny new film. BEATRIZ AT DINNER, currently in limited release, and expanding to more theaters, including the AFS Cinema, on Thursday June, 22.

Beatriz is a massage therapist who has had a really bad day. When she packs up to leave her wealthy client’s home, her beat-up old car won’t start and she is invited to stay for the evening’s dinner party. As it happens the guest of honor is a business magnate and right-wing news personality played by Lithgow. Their conversations at dinner (it should be noted here that Beatriz is a Mexican-American immigrant), and interactions afterward, form the heart of this remarkably engaging film.

BEATRIZ AT DINNER could hardly arrive at a more advantageous time. While almost everyone seems exhausted by such confrontations in their own lives, it’s still not out of mind. Some resolution is desired. Cinema and its stars are best when offering resolution to what are almost impossible problems. In BEATRIZ AT DINNER the resolutions are not simple and neither are the performances.

The Austin Chronicle’s Kimberley Jones says Selma Hayek’s Beatriz “cuts such a striking figure, you’ll want to follow her anywhere … and where the film ultimately follows is utterly gutting.”

Anita Katz of the San Francisco Examiner praises Hayek and Lithgow, “While Lithgow’s Strutt can be a hoot, Hayek owns the movie. Her Beatriz is a complicated mixture of clarity and confusion, and she’s a self-described old soul whose capacity for caring, however unfashionable, proves lastingly moving.”

Joshua Rothkopf of Time Out praises the movie’s level of discourse, “Together, screenwriter Mike White and director Miguel Arteta have an almost magical way with light-touch verbal sparring, an art that’s become lost in today’s broad, banter-filled comedies.”

Anthony Lane of The New Yorker notes some of the movie’s fascinating narrative ambiguity, which is what sets it apart from a run-of-the-mill exercise: “Arteta is clearly confident of preaching to the converted, and of whipping up indignation at those who mean us harm. Thanks to his leading players, however, the movie grows limber, ambiguous, and twice as interesting, and the sermon goes astray.”

Once you see the film, you’re going to want to talk about it. Join us at the AFS Cinema for a free lobby discussion on Monday 6/26 at 7pm. See you there.

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