It's My Party

Nick, an architect, learns that his AIDS has advanced and the time left is very short. Rather than live through the final stage, he throws a two-day farewell party and invites everyone. Among the guests is the partner he separated from. The film is not interested in the decision to die. It is interested in the bind the invitation creates: people have to say goodbye and behave normally at once, and the two cannot happen in the same room. Its best scenes are where that awkwardness turns funny. The form is ensemble drama in one location: a house, a large cast, and tension that rises with the hours. The director's own life sits behind it. Randal Kleiser took the story from the death of Harry Stein, an architect and designer who had been his partner; Stein's actual farewell party took place in 1992. Kleiser wrote and directed. Eric Roberts plays Nick and Gregory Harrison the former partner, with Lee Grant, Olivia Newton-John, Margaret Cho, Marlee Matlin and Roddy McDowall in a crowded cast. Who it is for: viewers interested in nineties cinema about the AIDS crisis and in ensemble drama. Who it is not for: anyone wanting restraint. The film leans hard on tears towards the end, and some characters are there for a single line.