Written By: Kyubin Kim
This article may contain spoilers. Content warning: sexual assault.
For many of us, the world we’re living in now is much different from the world we grew up in. As our knowledge of human experiences broadens and becomes more inclusive, films can open a dialogue alongside moments of change. For first time director Chris Naoki Lee, his debut narrative feature “Dinner Party” explores the transformations of our social and political climates with empathy and hope.
The film opens with a voiceover of a news report of a sexual assault trial. In an all too familiar narrative, it is revealed that a powerful, well-renowned doctor has assaulted a woman in a he-said, she-said testimony. If the verdict sounds ominous, you’re not alone. The concept for “Dinner Party” arose in 2018 from director Lee’s desire to capture the divisive cultural ripples of the Brett Kavanaugh hearings.
Assembling an ensemble cast of eleven actors (including himself), Lee layers this opening atmosphere of urgency with a series of nostalgic polaroids. Lee establishes a conflict here: between a protest for change and a desire to stay the good, old, comfortable same.
The premise of the film is exactly its namesake; the entire story takes place at a dinner party. Hollywood scriptwriter Cal (also played by Chris Naoki Lee) brings his new girlfriend Izzy (Imani Hakim) to meet his high school friends, which is the first time they’re all gathering together in ten years.
Arriving at the home of Vinny (Daniel Weaver) and his girlfriend Shannon (Kara Wang), Cal and Izzy stumble into conversations that don’t feel quite right. Belligerent, blond-haired Miles (Charles Hittinger) dehumanizes Izzy, calling her Cal’s “dark chocolate” and repeatedly refers to Cal as “rice boy.” Miles is engaged to type-A Veronica (Allison Paige), who asks Rish’s (Mayank Bhatter) Pakistani-British girlfriend, Gen (Kausar Mohammed), where she’s really from. Hipster-musician Samuel (Noah Lance Holcomb) is also in attendance with a tatted, beanie-wearing friend Kayla (Jody Steel) who quietly sits back, more interested in the trial than watching awkward interactions transpire between the couples.
These blatantly uncomfortable microaggressions are almost textbook to what it means to grow up as a nonwhite, non-cis, straight male person in America. Lee reveals that many of these “subtly” racist or “subtly” misogynist incidents were experiences pulled from his life growing up in Calabasas, California. Lee, conscientious of this very real concern that young adults are having about the changing landscape of what it means to be “politically correct,” poses this question, “So what is it like when you have a group of friends that used to talk to each other in a certain kind of way and then ten, fifteen years later, socially speaking, it’s not okay anymore?”
In one conversation at the dinner table, Samuel and Miles wax poetic about their grievances of Izzy correcting them, “You can say Black,” when they ask her what it’s like to be an African American woman in the music industry. “Now we can’t say that now anymore either?” Miles complains. At times, it’s frustrating to hear these opinions but Lee welcomes the viewer’s responses. No matter how you judge a character or gauge the situation, asking ourselves why this resonates is in itself a testament to the film’s ability to elicit further discussions.
On top of these personal incidents, Lee juxtaposes the national sexual assault case happening in the background. This forces the group to confront their insensitive actions and words, both in the present and also in their past. Shannon looks visibly uncomfortable as the girls discuss the trial and the importance of listening to the victim’s voice. Shannon admits to Izzy that she was also assaulted by someone she trusted ten years ago, and reveals that Cal witnessed it and never said anything. Lee’s layering of these levels of personal, sociocultural and national hurt expose the frailty of this friend group’s bond, no matter how idealized and nostalgic it might look from a distance.
With such a diverse ensemble cast and a story that confronts sensitive, delicate issues, there had to be constant engagement and feedback to create as authentic a script as possible. Lee admits that as two straight male writers, his co-writer Daniel Weaver and himself made sure to do their due diligence. After the cast’s first table read, Lee welcomed the actors to stick around for a couple minutes to get their raw thoughts. They subsequently talked for the next two hours, reworking the script to include the personal experiences that the women shared. By opening the film to an open, collaborative process, Lee and Weaver entrusted the story to those who would know it best.
View the trailer for “Dinner Party” here.
Another challenge in the creative process of the film was to ensure that a character, who committed a terrible act, would still be redeemable. Lee points out, “Often in stories, we go for the most drastic thing because it’s the most dramatic thing that really grabs your attention.” However, Lee opts to underscore the gray area, coloring mistakes with sincere guilt and remorse, and in some ways, redeemability. Lee’s favorite line captures this sentiment when Kayla acknowledges Shannon’s trauma: “He just broke your trust for everyone who came after him.” There is no forgiveness implied here, nor staunch condemnation. Instead of imposing an ultimatum on a character, Lee points out the importance of validation, “However small the assault was, it still mattered.”
Out of the eleven characters in the film, whose ethnicity, personality and backgrounds are almost a microcosm for the diversity of millennial America, it is imaginable that viewers will identify with at least one of them. One of Lee’s goals is to recognize that all the characters are not perfect but to open a space for viewers to reflect back. For example Cal represents the silent complicitness that many of us may be ashamed to admit we embody: the way he nods along to not de-assimilate and his reluctance to rock the boat. By watching this character and the consequences of his decisions unfold, the audience can also reflect on their own secrets they’ve kept. To this end, “Dinner Party” is a generative film that leads to new ways of navigating this world. Lee hopes, “If we can just talk through it and listen, we might find a better space in the future.”
Lee’s film speaks to a demographic in America who has inherited this political pessimism, distrust and a refusal to understand differences. It’s easy to come out feeling dreadful for the work cut out for us. But at the same time, this film reminds us of the power that art holds to speak to the moment we’re in and how art can instigate change.
Lee has a forward-looking mindset for the generations of storytellers to come, a hopefulness that is infectious. He is not naive about ignoring the riskiness of pursuing art but insists for young aspiring storytellers: “If you have the desire, if you have the ethics for it, if you have the talent for it, you are doing a disservice to the world by not sharing it. You don’t know the one or two or hundreds of people you could be affecting inadvertently, indirectly, unknowingly through your work. And that’s the power that we carry.”
“Dinner Party” made its world premiere at the 44th Asian American International Film Festival.