I had a film professor who, when we watched movies, would sit in the back of the classroom and say, in a sing-song voice "ex-po-siiii-tion!" every time there was obvious exposition. I can't tell you how often I hear that voice to this day while watching movies.

One movie that silenced that voice was The Band's Visit. I've seen it twice now. It's a small miracle of a movie, partially because it trusts the audience to understand what's going on without spoonfeeding them.

It's funny, Jim -- just recently I was thinking about overheard snippets of conversations, a phenomenon that's fascinated me for years now, particularly since moving to New York City in 1995, a great place for intentional or accidental eavesdropping. A couple of weeks after settling in, I was walking to Kim's Video, the West Village location, and I overheard two elderly women crossing the street in the opposite direction from me talking. All I could make out was one of them telling the other, emphatically, in that self-important tone of voice with which people recount incidents in order to make themselves sound wise and decisive, "So I told him...there is no way...you are putting that thing...in me!"

I heard a couple of snippets like that the weekend before last. One occurred outside Anthology Film Archives in the East Village -- an elderly woman admonishing her husband, "Stop telling everybody you meet that you're dying." The other was a guy who looked like Wayne Knight with Ray Liotta's complexion standing in front of B&H Video on 9th Avenue talking to somebody on his cell phone, and declaring brightly, "I'm telling you, every women that's ever seduced me, they all taught me something."

You know who does neat exposition? Terrence Malick. He's often maligned for his reliance on voiceover, but he NEVER does exposition in voiceover. He only does it in dialog.

Here are how two scenes begin in "The Thin Red Line." First scene:

Colonel: I want you [and your men] to go up that hill.
Captain (disbelief): We can't do that, sir.

And the scene is basically done, and the stage is set for the next hour of film. Later,

Colonel [to Captain]: Sit down. I'm relieving you of your command.

No preamble, no beating around the bush.

In "The New World," you'll notice Christopher Plummer is basically an onscreen narrator.

Malick's movies are never about plot and exposition, so he gets that stuff out of the way as quick as he can.

In reference to the semi-oblique expository dialog you posted, here's what we know about the couple and their history with the restaurant:

The man is obviously a closeted homosexual who lives at home with his mother.

The woman is his mother. She is entirely oblivious to the fact that her son's "roommate" is actually her son's lover.

The missing 3rd companion is the man's lover. He perhaps irritates his partner's mother, for reasons beyond his complete lack of observational coherency and his seemingly endless affection for "The Little Mermaid." So they snuck out behind his back.

The waitress is relieved at the 3rd companion's absence--possibly a tip-related grudge.

Fade to black.

JE: I'm so glad you explained that. I didn't know what the hell was going on. This accounts for why he ordered "les poissons" -- catch of the day in Champaign-Urbana.

Gee, and here I was thinking the hostess was merely making a comment about the absence of their small kids that usually accompany them, and the guy just had a witty comeback. Shows my lack of imagination.