DINNER FOR SCHMUCKS
US, 2010, 114 minutes. Colour.
Steve Carell, Paul Rudd, Zach Galifianakis, Jermaine Clement, Stephanie Szostak, Lucy Punch, Bruce Greenwood, David Walliams, Ron Livingston.
Directed by Jay Roach.
Somebody must have written it, a reviewer or a blogger, but I haven’t seen it, so I can take the liberty of saying , ‘Movie for Schmucks’! While watching it – and it did have some amusing moments, but... – it gave me the opportunity to mull over the different nuances in ‘daft’, ‘ditsy’, ‘silly’, ‘stupid’, ‘idiotic’ and whatever word combines, laughing at, mockery and meanness.
Francis Veber’s original film of the late 1990s, Diner des Cons, was a farce with French daft sensibility, a sense of the absurd, while keeping a perspective on snobbery and mockery. Jacques Villeret made a sympatheric ‘con’, now translated as ‘schmuck’.
One wishes one could say the same of Steve Carrell, excellent comedian as he has proven himself to be. He does his best with the role of the idiot, Barry, invited to dinner to be mocked by arrogant businessmen. But his character is written so inconsistently, is too ditsy to believe so that, even as a schmuck,, his behaviour does not make sense. At one moment, he is as simple as a dove, at another, he is the cause of sniggering (quite a lot of that) with a touch of leering. In the original, the con builds models of famous edifices with toothpicks. Here, quite a nice idea, he makes representations of famous paintings with mice. These dioramas look quite good. So, on the whole this character is a puzzle.
Paul Rudd has an easier time of playing the ambitious businessman who wants to provide everything for his fiancée (a pleasant Stephanie Szostak) and agrees to bring a schmuck to the dinner hosted by his boss (Bruce Greenwood) and encounters Barry and latches on to him. His dilemma, after Barry seems to ruin everything for him by intervening at the wrong time, mistaking identities and altogether acting schmuckingly, is whether he wants to do the decent thing or not and reclaim his life – and fiancée. It won’t spoil anything to know that at the end, he does, and true friendship and some integrity win out.
The dinner itself mocks a whole group of eccentrics in a way that the film seems to be saying the audience should not mock when it comes to Barry. (But, the mean businessmen do deserve their ultimate mocking!)
Along the way, there are some amusing moments and many which seem just too laboured. Three bonuses occur in the presence of New Zealand comedian, Jermaine Clement (Flight of the Conchords, and a very funny turn in Gentleman Broncos) as a really oddball photographer, David Walliams as a wealthy Zurich art collector, and Zach Galifianakis doing another of his really peculiarly oblivious to reality characters (The Hangover, Due Date).
Jay Roach has been responsible for the Meet the Parents series and can do much better than this.
1. The film’s lack of success? Comparisons with the French original? The value of a remake, the adaptation, the transfer from France to the United States? Different humour and different styles?
2. Los Angeles, the business world, society, the different types, the realism and the lack of realism in the dinner and the guests? The musical score?
3. The title? The tone? The laughing at people rather than with them?
4. Tim as the centre, the straight man, the focus of the business drama and romance? His job, his boss, the meetings? The Swiss client? The relationship with Julie? Her job? Her reaction to the invitation? His decision? Tim and his suspicions of Julie and Kieran? The encounter with Barry, the accident, Barry’s behaviour, the reaction? The thought of taking him to the dinner? Barry going through his computer, finding Darla, the message, her turning up?
5. The character of Barry, Steve Carell, his appearance, hair, teeth, manner of speaking? Eccentricities? The accident, his comment on the car? Ingenuous? Needing friends? Accepting Tim’s invitation, the visit, the computer, Julie and Darla and the encounter?
6. Lance Fender, the board meeting, his style, his friends, the tradition of the dinner? A mean-minded approach to victims? Laughing at?
7. The guests at the dinner, the schmucks? Barry and the background of his mice and the creatures? His reaction to being present? The group: the blind swordsman, the vulture lover, Madame Nora, the ventriloquist? Their behaviour at the dinner, the guests laughing at them? How humorous for the audience?
8. Barry hanging out with Tim, the visit to Kieran, the encounter with Darla, the meal with the Swiss banker? Tim and his hiding? The mess? The IRS, Therman and his character, behaviour, eccentricities?
9. The millionaire at the meal, Darla pretending to be Julie, Julie’s arrival? Barry and his overhearing Tim complaining about him?
10. Barry, the effect, audience sympathy or not? The stuffed mice exhibition?
11. Tim, reconciling with Julie, his boss, his reaction to the dinner? The happy ending?
