Review: Beatriz at Dinner

There's a sadness that reverberates through screenwriter Mike White and director Miguel Arteta's latest collaboration, Beatriz at Dinner. It's a deep depth of emotion that's predominantly provided by Salma Hayek, who delivers a majestic performance of stillness, radiance and melancholy as the title character.

First introduced tending to her menagerie of pets before heading off to work at the Arendale Cancer Center, an alternative-medicine facility where her empathetic and nurturing nature is further highlighted. Her day nearly done, she gets into her old Volkswagen and drives up to the Newport Beach mansion of one of her clients, Cathy (Connie Britton), who considers Beatriz a friend of the family since Beatriz cared for her cancer-stricken daughter years earlier. As Beatriz massages Cathy, the two women catch up - Cathy's daughter is now in university, Beatriz relays how her neighbour killed one of her goats.

When Beatriz's car breaks down and she has to wait for a friend to pick her up, Cathy invites her to stay for the dinner despite the objections of her husband Grant (David Warshofsky), who reminds his wife that this is an important business dinner. It's immediately clear that Beatriz is a fish out of water and not just because she's plainly dressed and greets each guest with a hug. She's an outsider, mistaken for the housemaid by Doug Strutt (John Lithgow), the real-estate baron with the much-younger wife (Amy Landecker), penchant for big-game hunting, an almost prideful disregard for those affected by his voracious land grabs, and a not-so-incidental resemblance to a certain businessman-turned-reality-star-turned-president.

As White's script is not exactly awash in subtlety, it's evident that the markedly different ideologies and personal natures of Beatriz and Doug are about to collide. Her increasingly wine-fueled disgust over his boorishness and capitalism smacks against the blithe nonchalance he derives from being a privileged white man. As smart and understandable as White's claustrophobic set-up is, Beatriz at Dinner could have easily jettisoned its other characters and focused solely on Beatriz and Doug since Hayek and Lithgow are nothing less than electric, their richly textured performances tempering the heavy-handedness of White and Arteta's admittedly well-intentioned indignation.

Beatriz at Dinner

Directed by: Miguel Arteta

Written by: Mike White

Starring: Salma Hayek, John Lithgow, Connie Britton, Jay Duplass, Chloë Sevigny, Amy Landecker, David Warshofsky