Speaking truth to power in Beatriz at Dinner and Fargo
The characters Beatriz and Gloria model resistance against powerful, immoral blowhards.
The movie Beatriz at Dinner and the third season of the FX drama Fargo both take on the Trump era without mentioning the man himself. Both explore how we got to an era of alternative facts and fractured common good. Neither provides a sure way out of our predicament, but Fargo suggests a choice of roles for the viewer.
We are in Trumpland from the minute we meet Doug Strutt (John Lithgow), the guest of honor at the dinner in Beatriz at Dinner (directed by Miguel Arteta). Doug is a blowhard who is used to having his ideas and whims humored. When he thinks out loud about titles for his memoirs, his possibilities are Get Out of My Way, Asshole and Life Is a Game and Guess Who Won?
Everyone at the dinner party is hoping to get rich in Doug’s next real estate deal, except Beatriz (Salma Hayek), a friend of the hostess who joins the party when her car breaks down. Beatriz is the water to Doug’s oil, the light to his dark. Doug is a destroyer, Beatriz a healer. But Beatriz is a match for Doug and the only one of the characters with a moral center coherent enough to take him on.
