Peter Dinklage’s Great Performance Makes ‘My Dinner With Hervé’ A Reservation You Can’t Miss [Review]

Biopics are notoriously tricky cinematic propositions, as the good ones often live at either end of a wide spectrum that spans the gamut from great man celebrations (“First Man,” “Malcom X,” or “Gandhi”) to troubled man cautionary tales (“Pollack,” “Amadeus,” or “Raging Bull”). It’s easy to mess this up: to fall somewhere in the middle where complicated characters are neither celebrated nor scrutinized appropriately (see “The Imitation Game” for an example of this). HBO’s “My Dinner With Hervé” avoids this trap by going all-in on the cautionary side of things, and while it isn’t an indictment of Hervé Villechaize (Peter Dinklage), it does justice to a complicated man and his remarkable story.

The audience meets Hervé through U.K. journalist Danny Tate (Jamie Dornan), who gets an assignment to interview Villechaize as an afterthought since Danny is traveling to L.A. for a different (more important) story. A recovering alcoholic just one month sober, Danny is struggling to put the pieces of his life together following an especially bad bender that forced him onto the wagon. His editor isn’t expecting much out of the Hervé piece (“500 words…make it funny,” she remarks), so Danny approaches his interview with all the enthusiasm of a man going to the dentist.

Set in 1993, long after the flame of his celebrity burned away, Hervé doesn’t get many visitors from the press and treats the encounter with Danny like a spider who’s snared a fly for the first time in ages. Outwardly gregarious and generous with food, wine, and women, Hervé does his best to impress Danny, who might well have fallen for the act prior to his sobriety. Hervé’s stories are all hollow half-truths, however, and despite Hervé’s best efforts, Danny is dismissive and off to his “real” story before long.

Hervé isn’t about to let this last opportunity to be important slip past him, however, and finds Danny at his hotel later that same night. Encouraged by a promise to get the “real” story about Hervé, Danny embarks on a balls-out L.A. adventure filled with booze, pills, strippers, knives, and general mayhem. Slowly, Danny is able to work his way through Hervé’s rose-tinted recollections to pull out the truth of his rise and demise in Hollywood. A sweet and generous man in many ways, Hervé is also racked with insecurities that inform some of his worse impulses, leading to an all-too-familiar celebrity trajectory that shoots high, but falls even lower.

What works well in “My Dinner With Hervé” starts and stops with Dinklage in the eponymous role. Although Dornan does a fine job as Danny (indeed, much finer than what one might expect if Christian Grey is a person’s only exposure to him), this film belongs to Dinklage, who justifies every Golden Globe and Emmy in his possession with this performance.

Tapping into an emotional reserve that oozes authenticity, the duality of a man both celebrated for and trapped by an uncontrollable physical condition is a breathtaking thing to behold, here. Dinklage and director Sacha Gervasi (whose own 1993 interview with Villechaize formed the basis of the movie) allow the story to peel back the protective armor Hervé surrounds himself with, getting to a universal truth not at all unique to the actor.

Fame is a difficult thing to manage for anyone, let alone those suffering from psychological, addiction, or physical issues (or worse, all three). Hervé’s story is simultaneously inspirational and tragic, and serves as a reminder that just as anyone can “make it,” so too can they succumb to the trappings of success. There’s a raw, emotional honesty in Dinklage’s performance that brings this out in each sideways glance and forced smile, and every moment he’s on-screen is nothing less than mesmerizing.

Strong supporting performances by Andy Garcia as Hervé’s “Fantasy Island” co-star Ricardo Montalbán and David Strathairn as Hervé’s Hollywood agent round out a solid supporting cast that compliments the material well. And while “My Dinner With Hervé” does gloss over a few of Hervé’s more lecherous traits, they are indeed touched on and addressed. Engaging, funny, insightful, and in possession of Dinklage’s best work this side of “The Station Agent” (sorry, ‘Thrones’ fans, it’s true), “My Dinner With Hervé” is a reservation one shouldn’t pass up. [A-]