Anniversary Party

The Anniversary Party [VHS]

It's easy to be skeptical when a couple of well-connected actors throw a script together, start shooting their fabulous friends with digital cameras, and call it a movie. But Jennifer Jason Leigh and Alan Cumming, who bonded in Cabaret on Broadway, have crafted a rough little gem in The Anniversary Party. Influenced by Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and The Player, it's a devastating portrait of a fragile marriage and a perceptive look at life in Hollywood. The characters are based--to an eerie degree--on their Hollywood counterparts: Kevin Kline and Phoebe Cates are a Shakespeare- quoting actor and his retired actress wife; Gwyneth Paltrow is a rising young starlet; etc. Leigh is an actress on the way down, and Cumming, a best-selling author and up-and-coming director, is the sexually ambiguous husband with whom she has recently reconciled. The titular party is to celebrate their sixth anniversary, and revelations about the characters accumulate as the evening progresses from a tense session of charades to an ecstasy-pill-fuele d blowout by the pool. The screenplay combines brittle humor with melodrama and consists of more talk than action (as in the Dogme films that inspired it), but the proceedings are rarely less than compelling even if the characters, for the most part, aren't exactly the most likable bunch. As a result, Jennifer Beals ends up stealing the show from the bigger names in the cast simply by emerging as the most genuinely human character--the one who actually showed up to honor her friends' commitment rather than to advance her career. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Anniversary Party [VHS]

Taking place over the course of one night, The Anniversary Party is a serio-comic, sometimes scathing inspection of a group of friends. Joe and Sally Therrian (Cumming and Leigh) have a party to celebrate several important junctures in their marriage: their sixth anniversary, their decision to start a family and their reconciliation after a yearlong separation. They have invited their closest friends, their past and current temptations, and (to avoid a lawsuit) their contentious neighbors. An unexpected gift sends the party spiraling out of control and unleashes an explosion of painful confessions. The celebration becomes a scorching dissection of a marriage on the brink. Jennifer Jason Leigh and Alan Cumming co-direct this biting and closely observed film about men and women struggling to make sense of their lives and relationships. Written specifically for the ensemble cast, the film centers on the precarious relationship of Joe and Sally. Sally (Leigh) is an actress; Joe (Cumming) is a novelist whose career takes off with the movie version of his novel about their marriage about to go into production. The film also stars Gwyneth Paltrow as the young and beautiful actress Skye Davidson, who is set to star in the film Joe is directing; Kevin Kline and Phoebe Cates as Cal and Sophia Gold - Cal, an acclaimed actor currently working on a film with Sally, and Sophia, Sally's best friend, who has given up her acting career to raise their children; John C. Reilly as Mac, the director of Sally and Cal's latest film, and Jane Adams as his wife Clair, an actress who has continued working after the recent birth of their son; Parker Posey and John Benjamin Hickey are Judy and Jerry Adams, the Therrian's business managers; Jennifer Beals is Gina Taylor, a photographer and Joe's first important love; Michael Panes is Sally's friend Levi Panes, who is still licking the wounds from his own recent breakup, and Mina Badie and Denis O'Hare are Monica and Ryan Rose, the Therrian's