Beatriz (Salma Hayek) prides herself on being a healer in her occupation as a physical therapist. She likes to help mend people's bodies and try to make this world she inhabits a better place, especially since there's so much pollution and what not running rampant and damage the planet. Even for someone who prides themselves on making the world better though, Beatriz is having a tough time keeping spirits high though as her car is failing to start right after she gets finished providing a massage for her friend Kathy (Connie Britton). She's stranded out here quite a ways from her home and her various pets, but Beatriz still looks to try to make the best of things at this dinner party.
Once the other guests arrive, Kathy attempts to include Beatriz in the proceedings and introduce her to her various friends and for a while things seem to be going well. Then dinner itself arrives and Beatriz gets the chance to interact with the boss of Kathy's husband, Doug Strutt (John Lithgow). Strutt, it turns out, is everything Beatriz is not, he's a dude who'll bulldoze over endangered birds to get his properties built, he loves hunting rhino's and he acts like a total blowhard. Did I also mention that he drops all sorts of racially insensitive comments towards Beatriz? As you can imagine, plenty of conflicts occur between Beatriz and Doug, especially as Beatriz consumes more and more alcohol as the evening wears on.
If certain people have the ability to "walk the walk", Beatriz At Dinner most certainly knows how to "talk the talk", with the screenplay by Mike White centering the majority of the movie around just dialogue exchanges around the dinner table or in a living room setting. The guy certainly knows how to write some interesting dialogue too and he's especially good at letting the awkwardness and confrontational attitude between Beatriz and Doug simmer and boil for as long as it needs to before it gets really ugly. When it's all build-up, Mike White's writing does a great job of letting the underlying tension in the room feel oh so palpable.
Director Miguel Arteta does a good job of visually executing these extended dialogue numbers, going for a more restrained visual approach that smartly eschews more stylized camerawork in favor of a naturalistic setting. He's also really adept at commanding actors as the various supporting players (including Chloe Sevigny, Jay Duplass and Amy Landecker) are able to give off performances that make their characters feel like real people even when they're just using facial expressions to react to the conversational duels between Beatriz and Doug. John Lithgow is a particular standout in the supporting cast as Doug, I love that he doesn't play him as an outwardly malicious guy, but rather depicts him as a brash confident dude who thinks he's infallable, as oblivious to the idea that his actions might cause others disgruntlement as he is rich. Bigotry and ignorance very much can come in overtly obvious forms but they also can come in more innocuous people and John Lithgow's performance very much keeps that truth in mind.
Salma Hayek manages to emerge from years of being stuck in Happy Madison comedies with a terrific lead turn here as Beatriz. The way, in the first act, she plays Beatriz interacting in Kathy's social circle does a fine job of generating humor and sympathy without turning the character into a laughing stock or a punching bag. That sets the stage for how well she'll be able to make a human being out of Beatriz which makes it all the more engrossing once she begins to let loose on Doug. These performances and the well-done writing do a great job of making Beatriz At Dinner a treat, and even if it closes out on a bleak ending that misses the mark (the grim tone feels right in that ending scene but the execution is off), it's still one movie I'd recommend giving a taste.
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