Director Miguel Arteta (“Good Girl”) and writer Mike White give us “Beatriz At Dinner,” a story, one might suspect, that was rushed into being to capitalize on the political maelstrom in Washington. Not true, of course, but one can’t be blamed for thinking so.

Salma Hayek is here, and that’s our good luck. Hayek, forever remembered as the splendid, powerful “Frida,” is our Beatriz, an itinerant spiritual healer and masseuse who uses Eastern techniques, oils, temple bells and mindfulness to heal physical pain, mostly of people suffering from cancer.

But most of her meager income comes from the wealthy and pampered women in the lush suburbs around Los Angeles.

Beatriz — born in Mexico, raised in America — lives quietly in a tiny house in a rough-edged neighborhood with her two dogs and a baby goat. Each day, she packs up her equipment and makes her rounds.

On this eventful day, she has come to treat Cathy, a wealthy housewife in Newport Beach. Their relationship began when Beatriz treated her daughter, who was suffering from Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Cathy (Connie Britton) is a warm woman who seems to truly love her healer. But love, like beauty, can be skin deep.

Today Cathy and her successful builder/real estate developer husband are having dinner guests, notably one of America’s richest, powerful men, Doug Strutt (another great performance by John Lithgow) — a bloviating billionaire and land raper, who exhales cigar smoke and the F-word with each puff.

When Beatriz’s car breaks down, Cathy graciously invites her to stay for dinner.

We now stand looking at the road ahead of us, a path we know is loaded with landmines. Beatriz, still dressed in her casual work clothes and relaxed by three glasses of white wine, sits down to dinner, a spiritual lamb full of the light of goodness, perching at the end of the table and surrounded by Gucci and Polo adorned lions.What could go wrong?

The conversation, dominated by the Trumpian Doug Strutt, soon turns to the group’s shared new project — one that will probably shatter the countryside, toss aside regulations, destroy bird and animal havens, and scatter the locals who live in the path of the golden machinery.

Beatriz will sit quietly with a passive smile, as the banal chit chat flows around the table. A young chef offers the choice of expensive steaks or fish and new wines. It isn’t until later, when Strutt passes around his iPhone with pictures of himself sitting beside a dead white rhino that he has slaughtered, does the gathering darkness descend. When the camera reaches Beatriz we know by her eyes that we have reached the promised landmines.

Surprisingly, the expected explosion is brief, and hostess Cathy quickly calms her guests and guides the Chardonnay-laced healer off to bed in her late daughter’s bedroom.

But here, Beatriz finds mementos of her deceased patient: photos, beads, charms and a half smoked marijuana cigarette. After a few puffs and some wine stoked memories, our Beatriz rejoins the party. I can say no more, but that there are three endings offered.

Hayak is, as expected, sublime. In her simple cottons, she strolls the white woman’s polished floors like a tiny Mexican sandpiper, examining art and sipping expensive wine, inhaling the million-dollar air.

Lithgow, always a polished pro, has the easiest job: simply speaking White’s sharp, condescending and brutally insulting, lines. But his finest moments are when he confronts Beatriz alone on a patio, and makes a sincere effort to understand why this tiny creature actually “cares” so much about the earth he ravishes. It’s a glorious moment, and worth the price of the ticket.

The guests: Chloe Sevigny, Jay Duplass and David Warshofsky (the hostesses’ husband), under Arteta’s skillful direction, carefully walk the line between caricature and chilling modernity. No one falls. Bravo.

J.P. Devine is a former stage and screen actor.

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