Sally Potter
The Party

A masterpiece film that elevates British cinema with an exceptional cast deftly directed by Sally Potter, because when you have to direct actors like Timothy Spall and Bruno Ganz, Kristin Scott Thomas and Patricia Clarkson, or Emily Mortimer, Cherry Jones, and Cillian Murphy, there's probably not much you need to explain. They are on stage as they are in everyday life, in a story that is practically a brilliant and fun stage play, but at the same time sharp and even tragicomic, conceived and written by the director herself, who here makes all the right moves: she chooses a limited setting, a single apartment, fundamentally just the living room where the hostess entertains the guests, and it's surrounded by shots filmed in other parts of the house; a precise number of characters, six or seven, among whom the real protagonist is there but ultimately not visible; she strongly focuses on black and white, as if wanting to recreate the visual dimension of brilliant comedies from the fifties-sixties, a kind of Billy Wilder trademark, but then she constructs a black comedy following a British tradition that from this point of view is surely rich with noteworthy episodes at least starting from the seventies with Joseph L. Mankiewicz's "Sleuth". But also thinking about more recent French situationism like "Le Prénom" (2013) is not inappropriate, although surely the tones of Sally Potter's film are nonetheless more serious and of a wider scope, the farce being enacted is not instrumental or dictated by a joke from one of the protagonists, but starts from a dramatic moment, as all the contents of the work are dramatic and thus its farce ends up representing life itself.

We are at the home of Janet (Kristin Scott Thomas), an emancipated, feminist, and idealistic woman, a staunch supporter of civil rights and a prominent member of the Labour Party (though not directly mentioned, we can easily imagine this to be the case). We are in the United Kingdom, of course, and Janet has just been named the health minister of the shadow government, a culmination of many years of battles and political-social commitment for her, and perhaps a stepping stone towards a more significant political career. The moment is clearly very important for her, so she invites three pairs of friends over to celebrate. Each will immediately reveal a particular and distinctive personality. Representatives of a middle-class, idealistic, and self-absorbed cultural class, unable to reconcile their ideals and values with the reality around them, all committed to upholding at least on paper, their convictions without compromise with the reality of things.

Paradoxically, or perhaps not, the characters with the gentlest and apparently weakest dispositions are the ones who show greater balance. On one side, there's Janet, a convinced idealist but at the same time willing to do anything to achieve the coveted success. Her husband Bill (Timothy Spall) is a mild-mannered intellectual who has dedicated his life to following his wife's passions, letting things pass him by without ever taking on any responsibility. April (an astonishing Patricia Clarkson) is Janet's best friend, cynical and vulgar, envious of her success and materialistic, constantly insulting her husband, the naive Gottfried (Bruno Ganz), an elderly and placid idealist, spiritual, an aromatherapist and critic of Western society and modernity, and every time he opens his mouth, he is promptly silenced by his wife, who states between jibes that they're close to divorcing, making it clear to everyone that she doesn't care and even looks forward to shedding that cumbersome weight. There are Martha (Cherry Jones), a feminist and lesbian university professor, who has a relationship with the sweet and younger Jinny (Emily Mortimer), who has decided to become a mother and is pregnant with triplets, a piece of news shared that same evening and received with coldness and general disinterest even from her partner. There’s the young Tom (Cillian Murphy), a finance broker in crisis with his wife considered by all to be a cynical and unscrupulous character, but who is actually a guy full of insecurities, with shattered nerves and dependent on drugs. And then there’s his wife, the beautiful Marianne.

Revealing the plot even partly would make no sense. Perhaps it is indeed the plot itself that makes no sense. In other words, there is none: there are simply this group of friends who meet for dinner to celebrate Janet's appointment, and then a simple "revelation" enflames all the personalities present, giving rise to a cerebral but intelligent, subtle but not difficult performance. A black comedy as if it had been scripted by Bob Altman. I think a better compliment than this is impossible (not that Sally Potter needed it given the deserved success and recognition of her productions). What follows are all the considerations of the case that at this point can be truly many despite the relative duration (about 70') of a film rightly awarded at the Berlin Festival last year.