The Anniversary Party (2001)

Sadly Over-hyped

Best movie ever!

A Disappointing Continuation

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

Criticized for being voyeuristic, I ask what else is movie watching? I would've loved to go to this party. Especially when they... well I don't want to spoil anything, but let's just say that the scene @ 1:02:40 is one of the best of the genre I've seen on film, and the music perfectly captures the ambiance of the moment. BTW it is Michael Penn's "Nothing Like Us." Well, I guess I better blab some more since this site requires ten lines of text to get a posting in and I can promise you I'll never post again because the last thing we need is more bland filler info in this world full of too much information. There 10!

Alan Cumming and Jennifer Jason-Leigh are Joe Therrian and Sally Nash, a successful novelist and actress throwing "The Anniversary Party" in this 2001 film written and directed by the two stars. Other guests include Kevin Kline, Phoebe Cates, Jennifer Beals, John C. Reilly, Parker Posey, Jane Adams and Gwyneth Paltrow. Cumming and Leigh play a couple celebrating their sixth anniversary, though they have been estranged and are just getting back together. Problems arise almost immediately - Joe has been hired to direct the screenplay of his novel and wants a young actress (Paltrow) to play a role everyone assumes is based on and intended for Sally. He invites the actress to the party, making Sally furious. Then the neighbors have to be invited (John Benjamin Hickey and Posey) because of an ongoing fight over Joe and Sally's dog Otis barking and enraging the neighbors. As the guests start to arrive, we see some interesting dynamics forming: a married couple (Adams and Reilly) who have just had their first baby and left him with a sitter; she's a neurotic, nearly anorexic working actress and he, the director of Sally's latest film, is unhappy with Sally's performance; a close friend of Joe's (Beals) who's a little too close to him and disliked by Sally; a married couple (Kline and Cates) who bring their two children to the party (Kline and Cates' real-life children) - he's Sally's costar and she gave up show business, etc. When the ingénue arrives with Ecstasy, the party takes a turn, and it's not for the better.This is an interesting film, helped greatly by the acting and the relaxed, almost improvisational feel of dialogue. Leigh and Cumming are cognizant in their writing and direction that this is Hollywood, where people are more self-absorbed and overdone than the norm. When Sally and Greta (Cates) have a huge discussion about child-bearing and Joe's inability to grow up, you can't take it seriously - they're both on Ecstasy and have the intensity of two high-schoolers, where everything is the end of the world. The scene is deliberately that way - they're on drugs. When Joe tells Sally he never considered her for the part in the movie because she's too old, we know it's a sore subject he didn't want to bring up. Meanwhile, the uptight, non-show biz neighbors watch the activity in amazement, the wife wanting to belong, the husband, a recovering alcoholic, afraid that she does. The film ends abruptly with nothing really resolved. The end of the film becomes a mini-version of "Long Day's Journey Into Night," and, almost like that famous play, one gets the feeling that after this night of Ecstasy, overwrought emotions and devastation, it will all begin over again today.Everyone is excellent, and that's not to say they're particularly likable. Jane Adams, Mel of "Frasier" fame leaves you wondering if she'll make it to the baby's first birthday; Kevin Kline, as usual, gives one of the best performances as a handsome leading man who "has a window" available for Joe's film; Jennifer Beals gives her character a nice, Hollywood intensity, making the most of lines like "he's magnificent when he's with you." Paltrow is perfect as the airhead ingénue, fawning all over Sally and saying exactly the wrong things ("I've watched your movies since I was a little girl") and floating around on another plane. Riley, Posey, and the rest of the cast are uniformly strong.Cumming is surprisingly believable as Sally's husband. Greta refers to him as sexually ambivalent, and he pulls that off rather than seeming completely gay - he is most famous for his wonderful performance in "Cabaret" as the emcee - but it's obvious he's capable of more variety. The beautiful Jason-Leigh is sensational - she plays a woman who's a movie star at a time when the cameras aren't rolling, and with her interesting look and penetrating eyes, you can believe it. She's determined to make a go of it with her husband, but she has doubts - that's there too. She and Cumming pull out all the stops as the emotions and situations careen downhill.One quibble I have is the age issue of Sally being uncastable in a role calling for her to be in her twenties. I saw Jason-Leigh in Proof, where a big deal is made in the script of the character being 25. No one in the audience, myself included, realized that Jason-Leigh was, in fact, at 39, the oldest actress to have played it on Broadway. Even on film, she doesn't look 39 - in fact, in my opinion, though Paltrow was dressed more youthfully and wearing her hair younger, she looked much less vibrant than Jason-Leigh and, unlike Jason-Leigh, wasted. This was a conceit in the script that would have been better had the age of the character in Joe's novel been more like 18. Everyone knows with the right lighting and the right cast around someone, they can easily look younger.All in all, a good movie showing the miserable lives of the rich and famous, something poor folk like myself never mind watching.

I saw this art-house gem last night for the first time and I really marveled at how much this film was like the art-house films made in the later 60's to mid-70's. It reminded me of the types of parties that the "cool" students parents used to have in that time period. You have to "listen" to this film for the language, rather that "watch" it for the action like a comic book movie or summer tentpole movie. It brought back memories of "Boys in the Band, "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe", "A Delicate Balance", and "The Big Chill", all of which I saw during my college days at the Student Union. A film well done that was both happy and disturbing. That's how it should be.

While celebrating their reconciliation and six years of marriage, the American actress Sally Nash (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and the British novelist Joe Therrian (Alan Cumming) receive their close friends, some colleagues and their next door neighbors in a party. Under the effect of Ecstasy, revelations are disclosed and relationships deteriorate among the group."The Anniversary Party" is a deceptive, pretentious and boring apology to Ecstasy. One of the best and first movies about reunion of friends that I recall is the wonderful "Peter's Friends". Since then, I have watched dozens of this type of independent low-budget movie, and "The Anniversary Party" is certainly one of the worst. The story begins without any previous development of any of the many characters, and the viewer understands how they are connected to each other along the story. However, the story goes nowhere, and the ambiguous lead character Joe Therrian is not clearly defined: he seems to be a shallow bisexual selfish man, without giving attention to his wife, to his needy sister, to his muse, to his neighbor, and only caring to his dog. The other lead character, Sally Nash, seems to be a decadent insecure confused actress. With two unpleasant people hosting different guests with their heads full of alcohol and drugs, the screenplay could not be much better. My vote is five.Title (Brazil): "Aniversário de Casamento" ("Wedding Anniversary")