Sally Potter is a film-maker who deserves to be more decisively seen and heard. I’m not one for avidly going to bat for socially-purposeful art, but saying that, Potter whose films have long addressed gender identity, political commitment, feminism, capitalism, and other concerns, is absolutely, in the parlance of the times, ‘one of the film-makers we need now.’
THE PARTY (2017) is powerful, beginning with a rage-filled Kristen Scott-Thomas, opening from the inside, a house front door (with an ornate brass lion’s head knocker) and pointing a gun at the camera which adopts a guest’s-eye view. Some party!
Scott Thomas’ character, Janet, is a progressive idealist turned successful politician and the title party of the title is a small affair, intended to celebrate her promotion within the British government.
Janet’s partner Bill (Timothy Spall) sits in the living room and spins immaculate vinyl on poor quality sound system, while Janet slyly relocated to conventional female host roles, cooks and fends off texts from a romantic admirer who is obviously not Bill.
The first arrivals are April (Patricia Clarkson) and her boyfriend Gottfried (Bruno Ganz), an aroma therapist who calls himself a “Healer” from whom, she almost immediately announces, she is separating from. Bill offers Gottfried some wine, and Gottfried cheerfully says, “actually I’m not drinking alcohol at the moment “. Upon hearing this, poor Bill looks as if Gottfried had just murdered his best friend. Gottfried takes it as a joke when Bill says, “I’m Bill, or at least I used to be,” but we will discover that he’s not kidding.
The pistol of the group Clarkson’ April expresses snide disapproval of the incoming guests. There’s Martha (Cherry Jones), whose partner, Jenny (Emily Mortimer) soon follows to inform her that they are expecting, and not one kid, but triplets. Arriving soon after is Cillian Murphy’s Tom, one of a seemingly universally admired power couple, the female half of who is mysteriously missing. Speaking of pistols, Tom is carrying a real one, and regularly snorting up powders in the bathroom, the better to psych himself into using it, one supposes, but the only thing it really does is to make him sweat a lot. As sarcastic bon mots are traded, political observations made, and personal revelations dropped, whatever is in the kitchen oven begins to burn, escalating tensions.
This is a beautifully conceived and executed chamber comedy/drama with tragedy at its core. As serious as things get, THE PARTY never stops being funny, sometimes terribly so. Shot in a velvety wide-screen black and white, performed with utmost commitment by its unimpeachable cast makes it the hit of 2018 but so relevant to our time now as it was when it analysed the state of Britain in the mid 2017.
In conclusion, THE PARTY is an incredibly humorous, satirical take on modern day society’s political landscape as well as the hypocrisy of polite society and the one most likely reason for murder– constant affairs.
