Dinner party from hell
The drip-feeding of the latest series of this anarchic and hilarious travel show continues with a double-dose of Richard Ayoade-led mayhem. This time around, he’s spending 48 Hours with comedian Joe Lycett in Amsterdam and Miranda’s Sally Phillips in Stockholm. Hosted by Axle Whitehead, Australia’s latest gameshow sees teams of two take on ‘‘The Wall’’ by answering general knowledge questions. Answer correctly and the balls turn green and the money it reveals is added to the team’s winning total. Get an answer wrong and the balls turn red and the money is deducted from the team’s total. For a generation of New Zealanders, Bruce McLaren was a Kiwi legend and a hero. For anyone born after 1970 though, he seems little more than the name on a car, intermediate school or retirement village. That’s what Roger Donaldson’s 2017 docudrama aims to put right – and succeeds with substance, style and verve. Offering up a comprehensive spark plug-towheel nuts biography of the racecar designer, driver, engineer and inventor, from his early diagnosis of Perthes disease to his tragic death at age 32, McLaren is engrossing, enlightening and surprisingly emotional. New Zealand’s own When We Were Kings. British comedian Lee Mack hosts a new series of this UK panel show which each week sees three celebrities attempting to prove their beliefs as fact with the help of a team of in-house boffins. ‘‘There are light laughs to be had and a few surprising titbits to be learned,’’ wrote The Guardian’s Hannah Verdier. Morgan Freeman directs and stars in the opening episode of this US political drama’s fourth season. After the assistant vice minister of Timor-Leste suddenly dies during a meeting with Elizabeth (Tea Leoni) on the first day of the UN General Assembly, she becomes suspicious when the president of Timor-Leste ships the body back without a proper investigation. - James Croot
The Party weaves like a one-act play through the intrigue to a punchline which may delight, surprise or disappoint.
The Party (M) 70 mins THE Party is effectively a select gathering of some of the world’s finest actors, whose secrets and neuroses are revealed while the vol-au-vents burn.
What starts as an optimistic enough cocktail party to celebrate a promotion rapidly descends into the kind of night out you talk about for ages.
In the spirit of Agatha Christie the narrative is straightforward but effective: guests arrive one by one, awkward conversation ensues, then things get nasty.
The doomed shindig is hosted by Kristin Scott Thomas’ politician, Janet, and her flailing, ailing husband of several decades, Bill (Timothy Spall). The single location of a well-to-do London townhouse becomes the scene of a litany of morally dubious goingson and unexpected revelations which threaten to tear the social group apart.
It should go without saying that Scott Thomas is marvellous – utterly at home as the hostess and the core of the film. While the role doesn’t veer too far from Scott Thomas’ previous work as a crisply spoken, middle-class powerhouse, she is always a joy to watch.
Spall also seems to be having fun playing a dour, atheist academic some of the guests revere, and others disdain.
But the stand-out performances in this little chamber piece are Bruno ‘‘Hitler’’ Ganz who ditches his Downfall reputation with one shake of an incense stick as the preachy life coach-cum-healer, Gottfried, and his estranged partner April (a superbly droll Patricia Clarkson), who references their separation and his failings constantly, but gets no satisfactory bite from the cheery bohemian.
Writer-director Sally Potter has only put out one film every four or five years in recent decades, and arguably hasn’t had a true hit since 1992’s genderbending Orlando (the first role to introduce Tilda Swinton as a dramatic force to be reckoned with).
Potter has hit a more crowdfriendly jackpot with The Party, not just because of her top-drawer cast, but writing witty, fast-paced dialogue to be spat out by unlikeable and yet intoxicating characters (which include a MasterChef runner-up, a coked-up narcissist of a banker, and the aphorism-spouting hippie).
As if she doesn’t quite believe this is enough, Potter’s film is also, strangely, in black and white – though one suspects this is simply to zhuzh up what might otherwise feel a bit boring to the eye. Whatever; it works.
The Party weaves like a one-act play through the intrigue to a punchline which may delight, surprise or disappoint. But witnessing the event itself is one invitation you’ll want to accept. – Sarah Watt