If you find yourself scrolling through Netflix and stumble across the movie “Four to Dinner” and are wondering if you should watch the movie, here is my opinion.
The story begins with a couple, Sara and Luca, having some friends over for dinner. The conversation turns to the belief in soulmates and Plato’s soulmate theory in his Symposium.
Luca doesn’t believe in soulmates, while Sara does. To share their perspectives, they decide to tell the story of Dario, Matteo, Chiara and Giulia. Dario and Chiara are the hot and confident type, while Matteo and Giulia are the sensitive and cute type.
The movie starts by following the relationships forming between the couples with the most in common but quickly shifts to an alternate timeline, exploring the dynamic of opposites attract.
This 2022 movie is in Italian but has a dubbed English version. The original title is “4 Metà,” and I really liked the Roman vibe.
We see that both couples have pros and cons, and through watching, things get very messy.
The movie is very fast-paced because of all the switching around, and as someone with a shorter attention span this was enjoyable. I didn’t find myself on my phone at any points during the film.
That being said, it’s a hot mess. As I mentioned earlier, the couples had a lot of drama. This made things confusing with switching timelines and it wasn’t always clear which couple you were watching.
To start with some of my complaints, a large issue I had was that some of the characters were just flat-out unlikeable. I felt like I was excited for the timeline to switch to another just to not like the next couple I was watching.
Making the decision to cut back and forth between four different relationships was rather ambitious, and I don’t think that it paid off. The story lines between the different timelines were very similar to each other not only making things confusing but also creating repetition.
My biggest complaint of all was the lack of a soul mate story line.
This story claimed to be about if soulmates were real and it never really touched on the concept. Even at the end of the movie, you are left with a very unresolved feeling.
Remember how I mentioned at the beginning of the article Plato’s soulmate theory in his Symposium? Though it’s talked about in almost every description of the movie and heavily emphasized at the beginning of the film, it was never talked about again.
Not everything I have to say is a complaint. The scenery in this movie was amazing, and I love the cinematography overall.
I also felt like the actors in the movie were great and had lots of chemistry together. When couples started to get closer, I truly did feel excited and could feel their bond forming.
I didn’t feel like watching this movie was a complete waste of time, but it was nothing special. I haven’t caught myself thinking about it much past the end credits scene.
Overall, I give the film 2.5 stars out of 5 and wouldn’t recommend it.