Beatriz at Dinner (2017) * *

Directed by:  Miguel Arteta

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

The setup is there, but the payoff is not.   Beatriz at Dinner has a chance to speak to our political and racial divide in the early days of the Trump administration.    Released in 2017, Beatriz at Dinner only scratches the surface of the conflict to come.    Charlottesville was still ahead, as was the Mueller Report, locking children in cages at detention centers, and another two-plus years worth of moronic, baiting, and incendiary tweets by a man who is supposed to be a President and not a Twitter troll.

Beatriz at Dinner symbolizes the battle of the haves and have-nots in the form of Beatriz (Hayek), a masseuse who makes house calls for her wealthier clients.   Her car breaks down in the driveway of one of those clients, and Cathy (Britton) invites Beatriz to a dinner she and her husband are hosting with some other filthy rich friends.    One of the friends is Doug Strutt (Lithgow), who finances Cathy's husband's real estate deals and someone who no one wants to get on the wrong side of.    Beatriz swears she knows Doug.   Years ago, a hotel was being built in Beatriz' hometown in Mexico which caused economic chaos for the area.   Was Doug the hotelier Beatriz and her family were protesting?    In any event, as the evening wears on, Doug becomes the epitome of all that is wrong in the world in Beatriz' eyes, and she is not afraid to let him know it.

Doug's loathsomeness is accompanied by an oily charm and lots of wealth, which in his mind entitles him to do whatever he wants.   He's that guy who kills a rhino on safari in Africa and proudly poses with the animal carcass for a pic.    He passes his phone around so everyone can marvel at his conquest, or at least pretend to marvel because the other guests need to keep Doug as an ally to keep their pockets lined.    Beatriz has other thoughts about Doug's hunting, and throws his phone back at him in disgust.    Doug is the Trump follower stand-in, while Beatriz represents the opposition.    Her being a Mexican immigrant further fans the flames.    The performances are spot-on, especially Hayek espousing her sometimes misguided passion and Lithgow, who energetically paints Doug as a man of wretched excess who enjoys being wretched and excessive. 

Beatriz at Dinner taps into the awkwardness those must feel when attending a social function to which they don't belong.    Under normal circumstances, even the kindly and sympathetic Cathy would not invite Beatriz to stay for dinner, but since Beatriz is waiting for someone to pick her up, Cathy feels she is doing the right thing by having Beatriz dine with them.    Little did she know, or suspect, that having Beatriz and Doug at the same dinner table is a combustible combination.   At first, the men gather with the men and women gather with the women in small circles, with Beatriz waiting patiently or perhaps a bit uncomfortably by herself.    Those who don't already know Beatriz assumes she is one of the staff.

The stage is set for a story which speaks to our Trumpian times, and who knows?   Beatriz at Dinner may inspire empathy among the characters, who are forced to see each other and truly understand what it's like to be in the others' shoes.    It does, for a short while, but then stumbles on the way to the payoff.    Beatriz becomes unhinged by her encounter with Doug and his friends.    We witness Beatriz stabbing Doug in the neck with a letter opener, or does she?    Beatriz obsesses over a goat she owned who was killed earlier in the film.    Her final scene is a head-scratcher, but by then the movie had completely unraveled; unable to sustain the tension which came before.    The final fifteen minutes only make me wish the ending arrived fifteen minutes sooner.