I’m sitting there, minding my own business, watching My Dinner with Andre—you know, the 1981 film that supposedly exists to be this monumental meditation on the human condition, a transcendent dialogue between two dudes, both of whom are playwrights. And I’ll give you one guess what kind of people spend decades locked in overpriced Manhattan apartments with their heads buried in their navels, thinking hard about feelings—feelings which they are more than happy to justify as "art." Yeah, those people. So, the movie opens with Wallace Shawn (who is, for all intents and purposes, Wallace Shawn—at this point it’s pretty much impossible to tell where the man ends and his character begins) sitting across the table from Andre Gregory. And you can already guess where this is going. Andre Gregory, in case you didn’t know, is also playing an exaggerated version of himself. How original! It’s like a meta-performance about meta-performances, except I’m the one who’s metaphorically shriveling up from boredom. 

Here’s the setup: One guy ( Wallace Shawn) is your neurotic, self-flagellating, overly analytical New Yorker, constantly second-guessing everything, stuck in a world of consumerism, cynicism, and intellectual posturing. The other guy (Andre Gregory) is the opposite—a well-traveled, self-proclaimed spiritual seeker who’s spent half his life hiking through the forests of Europe, trying to find himself. These two engage in nearly two hours of conversation, and I do mean conversation in the sense of a slow, agonizingly drawn-out exercise in name-dropping, heavy breathing, and so many abstractions you’d need a doctoral thesis to even start unpacking them. And yes, the movie is supposed to be about “life” or some high-minded version of it, but let me tell you—this is not a thrilling ride down the existential highway. No. This is a two-hour slog through an overcooked dinner at a pretentious restaurant, with two grown men basically playing verbal Jenga with obscure ideas and pseudo-philosophical nonsense. The kind of conversation that you’re more likely to overhear at a table near you while you’re at some overpriced, faux-bohemian bistro, and then promptly tune out because it’s honestly more boring than trying to decipher what’s in a copy of Ulysses after ten gin-and-tonics.

So Wallace Shawn’s character (again, Wallace Shawn) is this guy who's spent years of his life being, well, himself, obsessing over his lack of meaning in life, feeling slightly dissatisfied with everything—except for the fact that he’s not Andre Gregory’s character, who’s been living this almost too radiant existence of “mystical adventures” in the wilds of Europe, participating in intense philosophical retreats and staring at the true face of God in the Andean mountains, or some other such thing. But of course, everything Andre says comes across like a bizarre combination of the grown-up version of a college freshman who’s just read Siddhartha and wants to tell you about it, and a frustrated middle-aged man who can’t quite leave his own spiritual crises behind long enough to realize that’s not a fun dinner conversation topic. The soliloquy Andre delivers about his supposed “evolution” in Europe is a parade of cryptic metaphysical wankery. He talks about “mysticism” and “the hollow center of the world” and whatnot, throwing out ideas about existential meaning that are so vapid and murky that at times I honestly couldn’t tell if I was watching a film or being subjected to an undergrad philosophy seminar gone terribly wrong.

But here’s the thing: the movie wants to convince you that you’re supposed to be moved by this. That somehow, you, as the viewer, are supposed to be contemplating the “deep” questions of life, the universe, and everything while these two dudes chat about their personal anecdotes, their perceived struggles, their cosmic insights into nothingness. And don’t get me wrong, I’m all for pondering the big stuff—I’m the first person to dive into a discussion about what it means to exist in a post-postmodern world—but this film doesn’t do the hard work of making you care. It’s like these two characters are locked in this mental box, going around in circles, endlessly throwing abstract ideas into the air, but never bothering to catch anything, never acknowledging that their philosophical meandering is, in fact, not leading anywhere at all. This is the crux of the problem: it’s not that the film is pretentious—because let’s be honest, the whole point of this film is to be pretentious—but it’s that they’re not even good at being pretentious. We get lines like, “The world is fake, and so are we, man,” or “I think I’ve seen the face of God in the Peruvian mountains,” which, if you’re wondering, is not as profound as it sounds (not that it sounds profound at all, frankly). But these aren’t the life-altering, tear-your-world-apart moments that the film wants you to think they are. They’re just words. Empty words that are meant to convey the illusion of importance, an idea of significance that’s so slippery and vague that it’s like trying to grasp smoke with bare hands.

And yet, the worst part isn’t even that they’re going on and on about the meaning of life—because, fine, we’ve all had those conversations with friends who think they’re solving the mysteries of the universe in their 20-minute rants. The worst part is that they do it while eating dinner. That’s it. That’s the whole premise. They don’t leave the restaurant. There’s no action. It’s just two middle-aged guys talking about their intellectual crises, exchanging philosophies like two people who are desperately trying to convince each other that they’ve somehow figured it all out, all the while sucking every ounce of life out of you as you sit there watching them chew. They never leave. There’s no resolution. It’s like an experiment in how long you can watch two dudes eat before you start questioning the very fabric of your own existence. Don’t get me started on the fact that the movie wants you to believe it’s a “cerebral masterpiece” when in reality, it’s just a self-indulgent exercise in big ideas that go absolutely nowhere. It’s like those guys you meet at coffee shops who think they’re philosophers, but who, in reality, are just circling around the same tired, pseudo-enlightened thought processes. They want you to feel enlightened, but really, you’re just a passive observer, unable to escape the gravity of their verbal black hole. This movie doesn’t feel like a deep conversation about life, the universe, and everything. It feels like you’re trapped at a dinner table with two people who are just desperate to impress each other with their own convoluted existential crises, and you’re just waiting for the check so you can leave.

Alright, now I’m going to flip the coin, because I think it’s time to step back and look at this movie not as the pretentious, self-indulgent pseudo-intellectual mess that I’ve just clawed at, but rather as what it actually is: a profound, oddly captivating rumination on the way we approach life’s big questions—and how even the most trivial-seeming conversations can carry immense weight when the people involved are searching for something real. Let’s begin with the setting, which is as deceptively simple as it is intentionally transformative. My Dinner with Andre isn’t about action, it isn’t about plot—it’s about conversation, which, on its face, might seem like a pretty small stage for what’s supposed to be an existential meditation. But maybe that’s the point. What could be more inherently human than sitting across from someone you’ve known for a while and trying to explain the ways in which your life has shaped you—how it’s all meant something, or not meant anything at all? You could argue that the entire genre of film has been built on the external, the visual—stuff happening outside of the characters. Cars chasing each other, explosions, people going to outer space or fighting aliens. And then you have this: two people talking. Not even in a living room or on a park bench, but in a restaurant, surrounded by the normal hustle and bustle of city life. The banality of it all seems to reflect the absurdity of the “important” things we think we need to be doing to matter, when in reality, the most important things—real connection, real self-awareness—happen in the simplest of moments.

This is not a movie about grand, heroic deeds. It’s about the complexities that arise from the mundane. It’s two people trying to reconcile the broad and disparate aspects of their own experiences: one man’s wild-eyed spiritual journey, the other’s grounding in the existential paralysis of modern life. It’s the interplay of ideas that matter here, not the form they take, and that’s where the film shows its true intellectual merit. And yes, maybe you think their talk is pretentious, but the film’s willingness to go there—to inhabit the lofty and the vague without apologizing for it—is what makes it so refreshing. Now, about this supposed “self-indulgence” that I casually threw at it earlier: isn’t self-reflection itself a key aspect of being human? What else is life, really, if not the constant interrogation of our choices, our experiences, and the ways in which those affect the very fabric of our existence? Sure, Andre’s mystical rants might seem over the top or too much at first glance, but there’s a quiet depth to them that reflects the authenticity of someone who’s gone beyond the typical narrative of everyday existence. He’s talking about seeing God in the mountains, but that’s not just about mountains—he’s talking about that elusive, almost ungraspable truth that so many of us spend our lives chasing, in whatever form it may take. He’s searching for something larger than himself, something outside the bubble of modern life that seems so hollow. And to dismiss this as empty talk is to overlook the struggle that all of us, whether we’re willing to admit it or not, feel deep down: the hunger for transcendence. We all want that moment of clarity, that piece of the puzzle that gives meaning to all the random chaos we’re surrounded by. If Andre sounds “pretentious” in his attempts to convey this, it’s because he’s struggling—genuinely struggling—with ideas that don’t fit neatly into the everyday. He’s pushing back against the limitations of language, of experience, of the mundane. That’s not a flaw in the dialogue; that’s the essence of it. It’s messy, it’s uncomfortable, and it’s authentic. And sure, Wallace Shawn’s character, Wally, can feel like the audience’s avatar in this intellectual battle, the one asking all the questions we’re too nervous to ask, and that’s where the real fun begins. Wally’s skepticism isn’t just for our benefit—it’s for Andre’s too.

 The tension between the two men creates a fascinating dynamic, one where the limits of human understanding are on full display. Wally’s groundedness in the everyday life he’s chosen stands in stark contrast to Andre’s pursuit of the metaphysical, and in this tension, the film unpacks the philosophical divide between those who are content with the material world, and those who crave something beyond it. The stakes of this conversation—if you can call it that—aren’t as trivial as “What is the meaning of life?” They’re about what we do with the time we have. Do we simply engage with the world as it is, accepting its consumerist structure, or do we go searching for something more, even at the risk of looking foolish or naive? These two men are not just talking about themselves—they are posing the most basic and uncomfortable question we face as humans: What’s the point of it all?

And while it’s true that the film doesn’t have much in the way of action or dramatic flair, that’s another part of its quiet genius. It’s forcing you to engage with the content, not the form. When Andre’s talking about his spiritual quest, you’re not supposed to just passively consume the narrative—you’re supposed to think. When Wally challenges him, you’re supposed to feel that tension in your own gut. There’s no flashy camera work to distract you, no editing tricks to artificially heighten the drama. Just two people, sitting at a table, hashing it out. It’s a film about ideas, about the way those ideas interact with each other, and about the emotional currents that flow beneath all intellectual pursuits. And here’s the twist: The fact that they never leave the restaurant is the most profound choice the film makes. The whole film is about the microcosm, the infinitesimally small bits of life that can yield the largest revelations. Every moment spent there, at that table, is a meditation on how fleeting time is—and how meaningful those fleeting moments can be. The film doesn’t need to take you on a grand adventure to show you something bigger. It’s already there, in the conversation. And in that sense, My Dinner with Andre isn’t about watching two guys eat dinner—it’s about sitting with them and listening to them try to figure out how to live. Because sometimes, that’s all we’ve got. We’re all just trying to find meaning in the spaces between us, in the conversations we have, in the ways we relate to the people around us. This is a film about the search for truth, for meaning, for a connection that transcends the immediate and dives straight into the heart of human existence. It’s a film about asking big, uncomfortable questions—and not being afraid to admit that we don’t always have the answers.

So, here’s where I land: My Dinner with Andre isn’t just a two-hour intellectual exercise in pontificating about life, it’s a meditation on the very nature of questioning existence itself. It’s easy to dismiss the movie as a pair of well-to-do men circling around each other with their own brand of metaphysical self-importance, but to do so would be to overlook the deeper, quieter truths buried beneath the surface. The film is pretentious—but not in the “look how much I know” kind of way that often makes us roll our eyes and check our watches. No, it’s pretentious in a far more vulnerable, human way, asking questions about how we grapple with our fleeting time on this planet, the uncertainty of truth, and the deep-rooted desire to understand our place in the universe. And in doing that, it’s daring us to face those same questions ourselves. At its core, My Dinner with Andre is an exploration of two people—two worlds—clashing and colliding through their respective experiences and philosophical pursuits. And even if we don’t fully buy into all the mysticism or the intellectual gymnastics, there’s something undeniably captivating about watching them grapple with life’s big questions in the most stripped-down, raw, and unadorned form possible: over dinner, in the most ordinary setting imaginable. In the end, it’s not about the destination of their conversation. It’s about the journey—about the way these two men, these two different approaches to life, create a kind of cosmic tension that leaves us, the audience, with more questions than answers. And maybe that’s the point. Because when you really get down to it, the questions are the only thing we can ever truly own.