The Party

A black comedy set in one house over one evening, running a little over seventy minutes. Janet has just been appointed health minister. She holds a small celebration at home; a few close friends come. Her husband Bill sits in the living room and does not speak. Then he makes an announcement and the evening goes somewhere else entirely. What follows is a chain of confessions. Everyone is hiding something: an illness, an affair, a lie and a gun. Within ninety minutes the celebration has completely fallen apart. The form is close to theatre: one location, a flow close to real time, and almost entirely dialogue. But the film does not look like theatre; the camera moves constantly and the cutting is fast. It was shot in black and white. The cast carries it: Kristin Scott Thomas, Timothy Spall, Patricia Clarkson, Bruno Ganz, Cherry Jones and Cillian Murphy. Sally Potter wrote and directed. The shoot took two weeks. The narrative is political as well: most of the characters are left-wing intellectuals and the film mocks the distance between what they say and how they live. A tight example for anyone who likes verbal humour and single-location films. It is short and fast; but the film feels sympathy for none of its characters, and that cools some viewers.