The Anniversary Party

The Anniversary Party

List Price: $24.98
Our Price: $4.71
You Save: $20.27 (81%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.19 (click here)
Category: DVD
See more DVD releases

DVD Cover Information

Movie Reviews of The Anniversary Party

Movie Review: Party On, Jennifer and Alan!
Summary: 5 Stars

I think this is one of the best and most insightful pictures ever made about people who work in the movie business. It is also an intimate, bittersweet portrait of the relationship between a movie star, whose career has peaked, and her writer husband, whose own success is just beginning to soar.

It is not an action movie. The whole thing takes place in a 24-hour period during which the couple throws a party to celebrate their sixth wedding anniversary. It is a low budget movie, shot on digital video, then transferred to film stock. It has a literate script but is not what I consider to be high brow. In fact, it's decidedly earthy and contains a great deal of scathing humor. If you aren't interested in Hollywood types or if you don't care for slice of life stories that delve into the darker elements of a relationship, this one isn't for you.

Sally and Joe [Leigh and Cumming] may have made it as a couple for six years, but it's been a rocky road. He left her and moved to London for a year. He's been back for six months. An underlying tension remains between them. On the morning of the party we find them outside by their pool getting instructions from their yoga teacher. Meanwhile, two maids prepare for the party. We see that Sally and Joe are rather spoiled. Joe has writing a new novel and has been chosen to direct the film version of it. Though he claims that it's a work of fiction, everyone knows that the main character is based on Sally. She isn't pleased that rising young star Skye Davidson [Gwyneth Paltrow] has been cast as this character, but the sad fact is that Sally is really to old to play her. In the afternoon, guests begin to arrive, and an interesting assortment of people they are. As the movie progresses, we see how intertwined these people's lives are and how codependent they are on each other. We see how the bonds of friendship can sometimes be a mixed blessing. As day turns into night, the party guests, having consumed quite a bit of wine, become looser and looser. When Skye gives the couple several hits of the drug Ecstasy as an anniversary gift, they pass them around to their guests. Secrets and lies come out that will forever change Sally and Joe, though not necessarily for the worse. The movie leaves it up to the audience to decide if their relationship will survive.

Vanity project or not, Leigh and Cumming are right on the money about a certain segment of Hollywood. I lived in Los Angeles for seven years, and some of the movie seems so real that I began to feel like one of the guests instead of an audience member. It is easy to dismiss people in the business as being neurotically insecure. While insecurity seems to be built into artistic types, I found that part of the problem for the ones who make movies for a living is that every job they take is temporary. This unavoidable fact tends to make them see everything as short-lived.

There are too many great performances here to singles any one out. This is an ensemble piece.

The photography is some of the best work in digital video I have seen so far. This process is revolutionizing movies because it is drastically lowering the cost. How much cheaper is it? The standard film stock used in The Anniversary Party's three-minute underwater sequence cost more than the digital stock used in the rest of the movie. It cut in half the time required to shoot the movie. I suspect small budget movies are about to make a big comeback.

Summary of The Anniversary Party