The Film Journal...Passionate and informed film criticism from an auteurist perspective.

Melvin Goes to Dinner

By Rick Curnutte

Richard A. Curnutte, Jr. is the Editor of The Film Journal. He has studied English and Film at Ohio University and The Ohio State University. He is a founding member of the Central Ohio Film Critics Association

It's been done over and over again: bright, intelligible WASPs sitting around talking about the mundane details of life, learning from one another, sharing, evolving. Melvin Goes to Dinner, the first film from director Bob Odenkirk (Mr. Show), shares many of these attributes, but manages to somehow transcend the usual trappings by presenting a spare, sharp-witted script and featuring a quartet of deft performances.

Melvin (Michael Blieden, also the film's screenwriter and author of the play upon which it's based) is a scatterbrain, aimless in his pursuit of career and prone to unhealthy relationships with attached, often married, women. It's during one such relationship that he's made a date for dinner with an old friend, Joey (Matt Price). The twosome becomes a foursome when another acquaintance of Joey's shows up with one of her friends.

The four are politely introduced, then proceed to spend the evening sharing one of those great movie conversations: they discuss religion, work, sex, love...everything and anything that a writer could cook up to wring out some juiciness.

Where Melvin succeeds is in the details. Blieden's taut script is one of evenhandedness. It's stripped way down (I haven't read the source material for a comparison) to the bare essentials. The four leads are allowed to shine with the terrific material they've been provided with.

Blieden himself is a tremendously natural performer. He injects tics and mannerisms into Melvin that lend the character to a certain endearment. He's a bit of a slacker, but he's also tremendously witty and warm.

The other three performers, Price, Stephanie Courtney as Alex and Annabelle Gurwitch as Sarah, are attuned to Blieden's sensibility, both as a performer and as a writer.

The film's been compared to the mid-career films of Woody Allen (Manhattan/Annie Hall-era). Certainly, Odenkirk employs the minimalist formal style of such comedies. But the film shares a bit of the off-kilter wit of Odenkirk's television sketch series Mr. Show (short-lived on HBO). There's a wry candidness to the language, a commitment to precise use of words that many other typically talky independent features don't share.

Odenkirk's visual style is slight, a series of medium- and close-up handheld shots. The whole affair has an intimate feel. He frames his actors from the points of view of the other characters, so at any one time the audience is in a specific perspective. It's not groundbreaking, but it accentuates the film's simplicity.

Although not showy, nor particularly cinematic, Melvin Goes to Dinner is a smart comedy that throws in just enough surprises to keep you on your toes. Odenkirk and company deserve kudos for not playing it completely safe. With resolutely human characters (complete with often unlikeable traits) and a determined approach to language, Melvin comes off winningly.