Dear Dictator is a 2018 comedy about a dictator who flees his island nation and seeks and hides with a rebellious teenage girl in suburban America.
One almost has to give a few stars for going the extra mile in straight-up creativity to Dear Dictator, an absurd comedy that does some pretty strange things with some very old tricks. Writer/directors Lisa Addario and Joe Syracuse have put together an undeniably curious effort that feels like it is somehow so sharp we’re all missing the larger point even as it remains sort of remedial in its approach. I know that’s ambiguous at best. So to is this movie, an often funny joke that one has to kind of think about a little too much to get.
On an unnamed island country, General Anton Vincent (Michael Caine) is the despot leader who decades ago overthrew the government and now rules with an iron fist, even if it doesn’t always go as well as he planned. Meanwhile, in middle America, poor Tatiana Mills (Odeya Rush) is living your basic teenage nightmare. She hardly wants to fit in at school, the place a hall of idiots, she adorning herself with all kinds of signals that she’s against the system, such as Army boots and jacket and a black T-shirt that says ‘Eat Me.’ Her mother Darlene (Katie Holmes) is having a foot fetish affair with her married dentist boss (Seth Green). Tatiana is, however, having a pen-pal-like relationship with Vincent after she chose him as the person she most admired, for reasons that have nothing to do with being an internationally condemned human rights violator. When he ends up forced into to exile, guess where he runs to? Now it’s up to Tatiana to keep him hidden while he helps her plan an overthrow of her school’s social system.
READ MORE: Review of the Joel Edgerton Crime Comedy Gringo
Obviously, Dear Dictator wants nothing more than to be satire. For example, when we first meet Vincent, he is being driven up to the execution site of supposed traitors, they on the firing range for using their computers to speak ill of the dictator. Problem is, they not only don’t have computers, the country is so poor hardly any one does. Oh well. As shots ring out, he shrugs off the oversight with a kind of regular frustration as the guard in charge chases after the car with echos of mea culpas, apparently in fear now for his own life. Back in the states, Tatiana combs the halls in her oversized boots, tripping on them continually, surrounded by ghastly stereotypes of mean girls and pseudo-religious types and an English teacher (Jason Biggs) who is more interested in looking like a cool guy than being a receptive educator.
Most of this oddly hits the mark, and admittedly one might have to be in the right frame of mind to catch it or even want to. It isn’t exactly high-brow nor particularly insightful, but combining Vincent with Tatiana on her homefield is a sort of ringer that often wriggles its way past the goofiness and hits the mark, Caine and Rush making for a decidedly interesting pair. Props go to Holmes as well, who is funny and on target throughout, earning plenty of appreciation for her efforts.
What probably works to the film’s greatest advantage and surely what keeps it as sharp as it is, is how well it points the finger at Vincent and Tatiana, the humor subtly suggesting that they are not entirely free of all this ridicule. I mean, he’s a ruthless dictator and she chose to write to him because, well, his uniform looks cool, like those guys in the Khmer Rouge. It doesn’t all work and it’s not nearly as dark or as biting as it really feels like it should be, but nonetheless, it’s a fun watch that at least wins the day for sheer ingenuity.