The Party | Fast and furious: Sally Potter's brisk comedy is a wickedly funny farce

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The Party Timothy Spall
(Image credit: The 61st BFI London Film Festiva)

 

A comedy of tragic proportions. 

An Abigail’s Party with posh lefties, Sally Potter’s deliciously tart comedy The Party revolves around another social gathering that goes embarrassingly and painfully awry.

Kristin Scott Thomas plays politician Janet, throwing a dinner party in her London home to celebrate her appointment as shadow health secretary; Timothy Spall is her distracted academic husband; and their guests are squabbling lesbian couple Cherry Jones and Emily Mortimer; coke-snorting, highly wired banker Cillian Murphy; and Patricia Clarkson’s former activist and her flaky New Age partner Bruno Ganz.

Lemon-sharp, Clarkson gets the best lines (‘Tickle an aromatherapist and you find a fascist,’ is one of her scathing zingers) as Potter lays bare her characters’ foibles and flaws with acid wit. Shot in crisp black and white and running a brisk 71 minutes, this scathing intellectual farce may appear stagy but it positively zings with cinematic energy.

Certificate 15. Runtime 71 mins. Director Sally Potter

The Party is available on Blu-ray, DVD & Digital from Lionsgate UK and Picturehouse Entertainment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-FuSuWienM

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Jason Best
Jason Best

A film critic for over 25 years, Jason admits the job can occasionally be glamorous – sitting on a film festival jury in Portugal; hanging out with Baz Luhrmann at the Chateau Marmont; chatting with Sigourney Weaver about The Archers – but he mostly spends his time in darkened rooms watching films. He’s also written theatre and opera reviews, two guide books on Rome, and competed in a race for Yachting World, whose great wheeze it was to send a seasick film critic to write about his time on the ocean waves. But Jason is happiest on dry land with a classic screwball comedy or Hitchcock thriller.