Secret, secret, who has a secret? Everybody. Ok, wait your turn. We will get to it all eventually. The newly elected Health Minister, Janet (Kristin Scott Thomas), is throwing a small “Yay, me!” get together. This shindig is so low key it couldn’t afford color film, a second set, or a proper run-time. And we are introduced to the quasi-hootenanny with a near catatonic husband Bill (Timothy Spall) playing jazz and staring blankly into oblivion by himself. Awesome! This is a remake of Animal House, isn’t it?
The life of The Party is Janet’s outspoken frenemy, April (Patricia Clarkson); she’s that overly frank college pal of yours who never strayed despite the fact that your lives, alliances, and politics have diverged in manic fashion. April’s favorite phrase is, “Shut up, Gottfried.” Her husband Gottfried (Bruno Ganz) is a faith healer by trade, a facet which earns exactly 0% of April’s respect. To be fair, however, 0% of Gottfried has earned April’s respect. Yet, it’s very possible that these two have the healthiest relationship of anybody at the gathering.
Lesbian couple Martha (Cherry Jones) and Jinny (Emily Mortimer) show up for whatever fun there is to be had at celebrating a new Health Minister. Jinny is pregnant with triplets, which gives adequate cause to discuss England’s national health care as if there were none before.
Cillian Murphy shows up with a gun. Has he come to assassinate the new Health Minister? Oooo, has he come to “Kill Bill?” That would be fun … if somewhat unoriginal. Mostly, I think he’s there to slay his own Irish accent, which shows up for the first twenty minutes, but magically disappears afterwards.
Ahh, but we haven’t gotten to the secrets, have we? Big juicy secrets, right? Well … kinda, I suppose. So, let me see if I understand this correctly: you shot a black and white film about politics and other adult issues entirely in one extended setting where the youngest cast member is over the age of thirty. Were you hoping that no kids would see your film? Well, guess what? Congratulations are in order.
It probably goes without saying that The Party is on the erudite side. The dark humor therein revolves mostly around political class warfare and faith healing. That’s going to turn off a large number of potential on-lookers, yet certainly turn on a much smaller group representing a certain class, 
education, age, and political bent. It’s like going to a fair and seeing a cornucopia of great prizes at a carny booth, but realizing that if you knock the bottles over, you’re only entitled a cross-section the size of a belt buckle (to all those picturing The Jerk right now, give yourselves a pat on the back).
Mostly, The Party feels unfinished, perhaps like we missed an act. This normally isn’t a problem; I don’t mind ambiguity at the end of a film, however, the run time is only 71 minutes which suggests a cheat, like somebody ran out of shooting money and wrapped the film as is. Hey, there are a lot of long films out there, right? Perhaps you could borrow some extra runtime or plot from Red Sparrow; that film seems to have plenty of both. Given its spectrally narrow appeal and lack of payoff, The Party isn’t worth a recommendation no matter how much I revered Patricia Clarkson’s belligerence. But, hey, belligerence.
A quaint celebration has begun
With hijinks kids would gladly shun
The humor comes built
With scholarly tilt
It’s fun if you don’t care about fun
Rated R, 71 Minutes
Director: Sally Potter
Writer: Sally Potter
Genre: Adult adulting adultery
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Conflicted English adults
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: People who need closure
