Sally Potter’s The Party, which unfolds in real time during a politician’s soirée to celebrate her promotion, is just 71 minutes long, but it certainly packs a punch. Actually, make that two. Two punches (at least). And there’s a gun, cocaine, a smashed window, throwing up, toxic revelations (of course) and a tray of incinerated vol-au-vents. It is less than half the length of, say, Blade Runner 2049, but three times as dramatic, and maybe 676 times as entertaining, plus it features a stellar cast who put the work in and don’t discover stuff by simply staring at it really, really hard.
Filmed in black and white, which gives it the retro feel of an old Play for Today (but crisper), the film is said to be a satire on ‘broken Britain’ and ‘a state-of-the-nation commentary’, but you can see that or not see that or just half see it or even just glimpse it momentarily.
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