I had “Watermelon,” the song that Patty sings in Dinner in America, stuck in my head for nearly a week, so I decided to watch the movie again. Of course, the earworm burrowed deeper into my brain.
“Fuck the rest of them
Fuck ‘em all
Fuck ‘em all but us”
“Watermelon” sounds like the kind of song I might have stumbled upon in the 7” bins at my college radio station, with the logo of some tiny label in Berkeley or Olympia on the back, a price tag from a now-defunct LA indie store on the front and a big Sharpie strikethrough across the song title, because, of course, you can’t say fuck on the radio. The song, credited to John + Jane Q Public (written by Dinner in America director Adam Carter Rehmeier and actor Emily Skeggs), is a perfect piece of punk-tinged, lofi twee pop, as if it were made after binging on Bratmobile Heavenly and Daniel Johnston. It hooks you instantly, kind of like the movie.
I’m generally very skeptical of anything described as a viral hit for a lot of reasons that ultimately boil down to one. Just because something is trending doesn’t mean that it’s actually good. Still, I decided to give Dinner in America, the 2020 movie that “went viral” on TikTok last fall, a shot mostly because the premise appealed to me. And, now that I’ve seen the movie twice, I’m confident in saying that Dinner in America isn’t a cult phenomena because of socials, that just happens to be the most visible way that word travels now. If we had no social media, people still would have come to love Dinner in America, the same way we did with movies like Heathers and Welcome to the Dollhouse and True Romance and so many others. Dinner in America is that kind of movie.
Dinner in America is about a punk named Simon whose misadventures bring him into the home of an awkward young woman, Patty, who has no idea that he’s actually the masked singer of her favorite band. Simon, though, quickly figures out that she’s the fan who has been sending him racy Polaroids.
Set in an unspecified time period, the Dinner in America universe is low-tech, even by the standards of the 1980s and 1990s. There are no computers in sight. The presence of turntables, cassette players and analog recording gear signify the characters’ scene allegiance more than a generational one. The general aesthetic of the mainstream world surrounding Patty and Simon is American Thrift Store, a mishmash of ordinary clothes and furnishings that one would have seen in the suburbs somewhere between the 1970s and 2000s. This all seems very deliberate and worth mentioning mainly because the theme of rebelling against repressive environments is always relevant. Dinner in America could have been set thirty years ago or last week. It doesn’t really matter.
But, Dinner in America is also steeped in pre-social media cult films. If you grew up in that world, then you’ll get that Kyle Gallner plays Simon with an air of Christian Slater in much the same ways that Slater played his most iconic roles with an air of Jack Nicholson. Early on in the movie, Emily Skeggs’ Patty is basically Dawn Wiener, the awkward middle schooler from Welcome to the Dollhouse, as a 20-year-old junior college dropout who gets fired from her pet store job and bullied on the bus. She evolves, though, adopting a look that’s closer to Ghost World, although she’s much less cynical than Enid Coleslaw. The revenge that Simon and Patty exact on the Jock Assholes is a straight-up reference to Heathers and I think it’s fair to say that there’s a bit of True Romance in their budding relationship. It’s a cult film that also reads like a loveletter to cult films.
Still, you don’t actually need to see any of those movies to enjoy this one. Film nods aside, Dinner in America has exactly what cult classics need. It’s extremely quotable. Next time someone asks you if weird is cool, respond with “In your case, no.” IYKYK.
Plus, underneath the crime and the angst, there’s a very sweet love story. I mean this sincerely. It has to be love if you’re willing to wear your boyfriend’s ski mask perfumed with “the smell of rock and roll.”
And then there’s that song. I played “Watermelon” in my DJ set at The Mermaid thinking that would release it from my brain. Didn’t work. I went to sleep with “Like a tongue, tongue/In my ear drum, dumb dumb” in my head and woke up all like, “Fuck the rest of them…” Eventually, the song and I parted ways, but you know it’s going to come back with a vengeance.
Liz O. is an L.A.-based writer and DJ. Read her recently published work and check out her upcoming gigs or listen to the latest Beatique Mix. Follow on Instagram for more updates.
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