From the Calgary Underground Film Festival: Dinner in America is a 2020 film about an on-the-lam punk rocker and a young woman obsessed with his band who unexpectedly fall in love.
Simon (Kyle Gallner) is decidedly on edge, having just set fire to a house where he was seduced by the mother (Lea Thompson) of a girl he just met. Meanwhile, across town, twenty-year-old pet store employee Patty (Emily Skeggs) is a constant target for high school bullies, who harass her at every turn, but she just grins and bears it. She’s obsessed with an underground punk rock group, of whom Simon is the lead singer, though she doesn’t know that when, while he’s on the run from cops, she gives him a place to stay. Soon enough, they find themselves on journey of exploration unlike any other.
Written and directed by Adam Rehmeier, Dinner in America is a caustic meditation on life in the United States as told through the eyes of a couple of misfits who clearly don’t fit in a world where no one truly does. Bending like a half teetering Jenga tower, it features two characters that seem initially on two ends of a long seesaw, both slightly exaggerated stereotypes of a dweeby nerd girl and an aggressive punk rocker wrapped up in an odd mix of absurd comedy and hostile social commentary. And it’s a smart combination.
No matter the story, this is a movie all about the casting, with Gallner and Skeggs absolutely electric in keeping the edges of these potentially rote characters razor sharp. Gallner scowls and hunches over dinner tables with a predatory menace, glowering from the corner of his eyes while Skeggs hollows out Patty to such a degree you feel like this is less of a performance than a channeling. She’s remarkable.
Rehmeier has his hands full, balancing his script on a line that recalls plenty of indie oddballs titles of the past twenty years while poking enough breathing holes in the box that it feels plenty fresh. He follows these characters about like he’s documenting an uprising, caring just enough about their place in all this that we soon can’t help but fall into the charms of their misadventures with a kind of hapless celebration.
There are some surprisingly potent emotional moments in all this as the bond between Simon and Patty evolves, both undergoing a kind of transformative evolution. What makes this so challenging is how deeply authentic it finally becomes even as it dabbles in the conventions of the standard boy-meets-girl romcom. This is a movie that bursts through the door with pandamonium clawing at the screen before settling down into a genuinely moving story of two people who didn’t even know they needed each other. Highly recommended.