Guess who’s coming to The Dinner? Quite the ensemble cast, as it turns out, with Variety reporting that Rebecca Hall and Chloë Sevigny have been tapped for Oren Moverman’s familial drama, joining Richard Gere, Steve Coogan, Laura Linney.
Based on Herman Koch’s best-selling novel of the same name, Moverman’s (Time Out of Mind, The Messenger) latest foray behind the camera is set to be a focused, tight-knight affair, orbiting around the titular family meal that soon brings old feuds back to the fore. Paul (Coogan) and Claire (Linney) Lohman topline the ensemble, making plans to visit Paul’s brother Stan (Richard Gere), a self-assured politician with one eye firmly on the coveted governorship.
Even Stan’s finest knives fail to cut through the simmering tension, though, which only grows and mutates between each passing course. Things take a turn for the worse when it’s revealed that the Lohman’s children are responsible for something terrible, testing the already fraught family ties between Paul, Claire and Stan, as they frantically try to make the best out of a horrible situation.
Adapting The Dinner for the screen himself, director Moverman had the following to say about the “provocative, conscience-bending” ride:
“Herman Koch’s The Dinner is an extraordinarily provocative, conscience-bending ride that takes on culturally relevant issues and turns them into an intricate menu of human passions and primal fears,” said Moverman in a statement. “I am honored to be tackling this international phenomenon as an American film with our family of talented artists and brilliant actors. “
Cameras are primed to start rolling in New York for The Dinner in only a few days, with a release date tentatively in place for late 2016. It’ll mark a reunion for Richard Gere and director Oren Moverman, too, who were last seen collaborating for last year’s low key drama Time Out of Mind.
