Dinner in America (2020)

Dinner in America is the rare rom-com that feels like it was spray-painted onto the side of a dying mall: loud, messy, alive, and unexpectedly tender. Adam Rehmeier captures the decaying Midwest with a punk-rock jolt of energy, then sneaks in a genuinely sweet connection between Kyle Gallner’s combustible runaway and Emily Skeggs’ painfully earnest misfit, both performances sharp enough to cut and warm enough to hold. The humor is abrasive in the best way—cringe, chaos, and catharsis—while the music and DIY spirit give the whole film a pulse you can feel in your ribs. It’s not for anyone allergic to strong language, sexual content, and rough edges, but if you’ve ever wanted a love story that earns its heart through noise, bruises, and laughter, this one might just knock you flat.

Dinner in America wants to be a scrappy punk-romance: two misfits colliding in the dead-end Midwest, finding a weird kind of tenderness through noise, chaos, and a shared outsider identity. When it works, it’s got real momentum, a dirty-sweet sense of humor, and committed performances that sell the chemistry and the DIY music energy. But it’s also deliberately abrasive, and the film throws in a lot of uglier behavior (bullying, violence, sexual crudity, general cruelty) without always digging into it, which can make the romance feel like it’s fighting for oxygen. If you’re not into confrontational, messy indie comedies that treat discomfort as part of the vibe, you’ll probably find this more exhausting than “epic.”