The Party (2017)

Jack and I laughed long and hard at this cringe-fest of adults behaving badly at a British party, meant to celebrate the job promotion of the hostess, gone sideways. The sparkling script, full of up-to-date politics appropriate for both sides of the pond, is by the director Sally Potter (her only other appearance in these pages was for Ginger & Rosa). The first time I saw the trailer I thought it might be a Woody Allen movie--black and white film, neurotic people, fancy digs, snippets of jazz. But no. Another similarity to Woody is the brevity. This clocks in at only 71 minutes, which, considering its intensity, is just right. I whispered to Jack that it was like a bigger ensemble of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf and, in the press kit (download it from this link), Potter references that work at the end of page 2. The movie was shot in 14 days after one week of rehearsals. Oh, and everyone was paid the same, regardless of gender (or anything else). Finally.

The hostess Janet, played by Kristin Scott Thomas (last blogged for Darkest Hour), and her spectacularly drunk husband Bill (Timothy Spall, most recently in Denial) welcome five guests to their home. Patricia Clarkson (after I wrote about her in One Day she had an 8 episode series arc in House of Cards) is the funniest--smart, catty, mean, just no filter--as Janet's close friend April. They're joined by her husband Gottfried (Bruno Ganz, covered in Unknown), their friends Martha (Cherry Jones, profiled in I Saw the Light), Tom (Cillian Murphy, last in Dunkirk), and Jinny (Emily Mortimer, most recently in The Sense of an Ending). I cackled with glee as much at Tom's anxiety as I did at April's insults. Potter, Scott Thomas, and Clarkson have all won awards, though not in this country, for this movie. All seven actors have done quite a bit of stage work and this movie would work quite well on stage with its limited locations around one house.

There's no composer. Instead we have songs, some of which are listed on imdb, and some of them are available on this spotify playlist.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics are currently averaging 84% and its audiences only 63. We loved it and want you to see it.