My Dinner with Hervé
Original post date: 1 January 2019
Rating: ✭✭✰✰
Sacha Gervasi is a London-born filmmaker who made an impression with his 2008 documentary Anvil: The Story of Anvil, about a Canadian heavy-metal band dubbed the “real life Spinal Tap.” That led to him directing Anthony Hopkins in Hitchcock. Before any of that, though, he happened to be the last journalist to interview French actor Hervé Villechaize before his suicide in 1993. This film is a fictionalized version of that encounter, substituting Jamie Dornan as an Irish journalist trying to get his life and career back together after an epic alcohol-fueled meltdown. In L.A. to interview Gore Vidal, Dornan’s writer is assigned to also do a short, humorous piece on Villechaize to mark the 20th anniversary of The Man with the Golden Gun (in which Villechaize played Christopher Lee’s henchman Nick Nack). The flamboyant, hard-partying Villechaize, on the other hand, has other ideas, and the night turns into a series of discussions, arguments, confrontations and misadventures. Through flashbacks, we get a tour of the actor’s sad, strange life, including his childhood in France, his marriages and his time working for Aaron Spelling on Fantasy Island. (Ricardo Montalbán is played by Andy Garcia, looking like he wandered over from the set of Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again.) This was reportedly a longtime passion project for Peter Dinklage, and he certainly makes the most of the role. Despite being encumbered by a black wig and thick accent, he is nothing short of mesmerizing. Dinklage looks nothing like Villechaize and stands a good half-foot taller, but that does not hinder our involvement in this alternate-universe version of events. As we watch the tormented little man drink and whore and paint, we are reminded less of his Game of Thrones character and instead wishful that we could someday see him play Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Gervasi’s screenplay (based on a treatment by him and Sean Macauay) works hard to draw parallels between Villechaize’s lot and that of the journalist with the long, wild night providing some kind of catharsis for the two of them. For the viewer, though, it is hard to feel anything but sad.
Rating: ✭✭✰✰
Sacha Gervasi is a London-born filmmaker who made an impression with his 2008 documentary Anvil: The Story of Anvil, about a Canadian heavy-metal band dubbed the “real life Spinal Tap.” That led to him directing Anthony Hopkins in Hitchcock. Before any of that, though, he happened to be the last journalist to interview French actor Hervé Villechaize before his suicide in 1993. This film is a fictionalized version of that encounter, substituting Jamie Dornan as an Irish journalist trying to get his life and career back together after an epic alcohol-fueled meltdown. In L.A. to interview Gore Vidal, Dornan’s writer is assigned to also do a short, humorous piece on Villechaize to mark the 20th anniversary of The Man with the Golden Gun (in which Villechaize played Christopher Lee’s henchman Nick Nack). The flamboyant, hard-partying Villechaize, on the other hand, has other ideas, and the night turns into a series of discussions, arguments, confrontations and misadventures. Through flashbacks, we get a tour of the actor’s sad, strange life, including his childhood in France, his marriages and his time working for Aaron Spelling on Fantasy Island. (Ricardo Montalbán is played by Andy Garcia, looking like he wandered over from the set of Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again.) This was reportedly a longtime passion project for Peter Dinklage, and he certainly makes the most of the role. Despite being encumbered by a black wig and thick accent, he is nothing short of mesmerizing. Dinklage looks nothing like Villechaize and stands a good half-foot taller, but that does not hinder our involvement in this alternate-universe version of events. As we watch the tormented little man drink and whore and paint, we are reminded less of his Game of Thrones character and instead wishful that we could someday see him play Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Gervasi’s screenplay (based on a treatment by him and Sean Macauay) works hard to draw parallels between Villechaize’s lot and that of the journalist with the long, wild night providing some kind of catharsis for the two of them. For the viewer, though, it is hard to feel anything but sad.
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