Reconsider attending dull ‘Party’
When does 71 minutes feel like an eternity?
When you spend them watching “The Party,” a mirthless, albeit amazingly cast black and white comedy directed and cowritten by Londonborn filmmaker Sally Potter (“Orlando,” “Ginger & Rosa”). Potter once cast herself as her film’s romantic lead (“The Tango Lesson”) and on another occasion wrote a screenplay with dialogue almost entirely in iambic pentameter (“Yes”).
On this occasion, Potter has created a piece better suited for a theater stage, featuring seven characters, lots of talk and a plot eerily reminiscent of a game of “Clue.”
British politician Janet (Kristin Scott Thomas) is the newly elected minister of health. Oh, the irony. Her husband, Bill (Timothy Spall), who is not thrilled to follow in the footsteps of Prince Philip and Dennis Thatcher and who gave up a Yale professorship to support his wife’s ambitions, sits in the living room listening to Muddy Waters perform “I’m a Man” on his
vintage turntable and audio equipment.
Oh, the irony. Best friend April (Patricia Clarkson) has just arrived with partner Gottfried (Bruno Ganz), a sympathetic life coach. April is a cynic who believes everyone is capable of terrible behavior. (Do say.) Gottfried spews aphorisms. Enter lesbian couple Martha (Cherry Jones) and Jinny (Emily Mortimer), wearing for some reason the clothing of the late Annie Hall.
Jinny, the younger partner, has become pregnant and has just found out she’s having triplet boys. Oh, the irony. Maternal Martha and emotional Jinny are followed by highflying financier in an expensive suit Tom (Cillian Murphy). Sneakylooking Tom has a small, loaded silver pistol and a pocket full of cocaine. Oh, the cliche.
“The Party” may aspire to the classic satirical efforts of such luminaries as JeanLuc Godard and Luis Bunuel. But it is not one of those efforts designed to rip the mask off liberal selfsatisfaction, like “Get Out.” “The Party,” a film in which characters puke four times, exists to make its creator and her bourgeois audience feel smart because they know what expressions such as “postmodern” and “postfeminist” mean.
Yes, we adore these actors. But after hearing the banal motivational setups and dialogue and witnessing histrionics on endless parade (someone is dying, two people are cheating, etc.), we tire even of these wonderful people long before the film runs its short, noisy course. The only person missing from the party is Tom’s wife, who is Janet’s PR guru. Oh, the ... shush. We can only envy her. I wish I had not been invited to “The Party.”