Janet (Kristin Scott Thomas) has been appointed an opposition minister. Her dying husband Bill (Timothy Spall) is bitter. They're hosting a small dinner party. Her cynical friend April (Patricia Clarkson) has brought new-age healer Gottfried (Bruno Ganz). Martha (Cherry Jones) and pregnant Jinny (Emily Mortimer) are a lesbian couple. Janet's underling's husband Tom (Cillian Murphy) is a finance guy and has come alone with a gun and drugs.

This is a black and white arthouse film from British filmmaker Sally Potter. It's very stagey. These people are two dimensional. Maybe it's the black and white but they feel manufactured. The writing is melodramatic. At one point, I'd figure that Martha and Jinny would storm out of the party but they stay for no discernable reason other than they need to stay for the script. It would help a lot to give each one of these character a more expansive introduction. There is plenty of time considering the film is only seventy minutes. I'm not even sure where this takes place. Is this America? Are they British without the English accent? All I know is that these are all the worst, self-obsessed Liberals. It's not terribly funny. It could be satirical if this uncovers a deeper truth. Whatever that is.

"The Party" is a British English-language film from 2017 and it is the newest work by acclaimed writer and director Sally Potter. It is a modern black-and-white film actually and it is pretty short at 70 minutes that already include some credits at the beginning and a lot more at the end. The name Potter obviously attracted several stars to this project as the people appearing in here are all successful and established actors. The only one I was not really familiar with here is Cherry Jones and even she is an Emmy winner. Go figure. It all seems fairly harmless early on when we find out a politician is giving a party for her friends to celebrate herself because she was just given an important political job in the country. That's why there is also another reason behind the title. But pretty much each and every guest has a secret to reveal as well and they will be shocking for everybody. The fact that one guest even brings a gun is not really helping either in terms of harmony. Eventually the movie profits a lot from its stage character. I am sure there will be British stage theaters showing this one in the future and it is a good choice. I also believe the actors did a good jib mostly. This is really not about liking the characters, even if I would say that Ganz, Jones and maybe Murphy too played characters that weren't that despicable. Bruno Ganz was also one of the main reasons why I wanted to see this one and he sure did not disappoint. But there was a problem with the script here and there. Especially the really dark take on comedy was not always working. One example would be Clarkson's quote about KST's character being in the spot to kill. This was not authentic, but fairly unrealistic. Clarkson's character sure was a bitch, but this quote did not fit at all. The ending I am not very big on either. Sure it is showy and memorable with the plot twist too, but is she really realistically shoot somebody for jealousy reasons that she just ended the relationship an hour ago via phone? Nah. Despite these flaws though I believe the film still had some decent entertainment to offer and the short runtime helps matters too. Not a problem at all. It may not be as good as Potter's previous work "Ginger & Rosa" (2012),but the positive is still more frequent than the negative in "The Party" (at least for audience members, for the invited not so much) and that's why I give it a thumbs-up. Worth seeing.

I had decent expectations for this from the second I saw it's trailer, I've just caught it on Netflix and it's fair to say I'm disappointed. A jumble of weird political statements and a masterclass in overacting the only thing going for this film is the fact it's a little over an hour in run time. With shallow characters who are easy to hate and are mostly uninteresting with the exception of Murphy's Tom this film is sadly not what it could've been. The setting is great as is the cinematography and style plus there's some great uses of music but sadly the 'story' is simple (which can be fine) but poorly executed, not what it could've been