Review of The Party

"The Party" is a British English-language film from 2017 and it is the newest work by acclaimed writer and director Sally Potter. It is a modern black-and-white film actually and it is pretty short at 70 minutes that already include some credits at the beginning and a lot more at the end. The name Potter obviously attracted several stars to this project as the people appearing in here are all successful and established actors. The only one I was not really familiar with here is Cherry Jones and even she is an Emmy winner. Go figure. It all seems fairly harmless early on when we find out a politician is giving a party for her friends to celebrate herself because she was just given an important political job in the country. That's why there is also another reason behind the title. But pretty much each and every guest has a secret to reveal as well and they will be shocking for everybody. The fact that one guest even brings a gun is not really helping either in terms of harmony. Eventually the movie profits a lot from its stage character. I am sure there will be British stage theaters showing this one in the future and it is a good choice. I also believe the actors did a good jib mostly. This is really not about liking the characters, even if I would say that Ganz, Jones and maybe Murphy too played characters that weren't that despicable. Bruno Ganz was also one of the main reasons why I wanted to see this one and he sure did not disappoint. But there was a problem with the script here and there. Especially the really dark take on comedy was not always working. One example would be Clarkson's quote about KST's character being in the spot to kill. This was not authentic, but fairly unrealistic. Clarkson's character sure was a bitch, but this quote did not fit at all. The ending I am not very big on either. Sure it is showy and memorable with the plot twist too, but is she really realistically shoot somebody for jealousy reasons that she just ended the relationship an hour ago via phone? Nah. Despite these flaws though I believe the film still had some decent entertainment to offer and the short runtime helps matters too. Not a problem at all. It may not be as good as Potter's previous work "Ginger & Rosa" (2012), but the positive is still more frequent than the negative in "The Party" (at least for audience members, for the invited not so much) and that's why I give it a thumbs-up. Worth seeing.