Watching "The Anniversary Party" will leave viewers feeling as if they have taken part in the same drug trip the characters experience in the film. The movie is such a bizarre mixture of imagery and music that everything about it seems surreal, from the plot to the characters to the "home video" fashion in which it is filmed.
While the many character plots and the flashes of strange imagery are what make the film confusing and disillusioning at times, the dizzying mess of how the drama unfolds is also the film's most endearing and meaningful quality.
"The Anniversary Party" was both co-written and co-directed by the film's two leading stars, Alan Cumming and Jennifer Jason Leigh. In it, they play Joe and Sally Therrian, a couple who have been married for six years, but are living apart due to several marital issues, among them his infidelity, her neuroticism and their indecision over whether to have a baby. Despite these problems, the couple decides they cannot bear to be apart and so decide to throw a party to celebrate their reunion, just in time for their sixth anniversary.
The guests invited to this party are a colorful cast of characters, not to mention an amazing group of actors. Cumming and Leigh wrote many of the parts specifically for their friends and as a result, many of the actors play exaggerated versions of themselves.
Kevin Kline plays a 40-something actor no longer being offered roles as the dashing leading man, while Gwyneth Paltrow is the ingenue being paid millions to star in Joe's upcoming movie. The cast is full of other acclaimed actors, like John C. Reilly and Parker Posey, all acting at the top of their form to make their characters as multi-dimensional as possible in what little screen time they have.
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The film follows Joe, Sally and their many guests (there are eleven or so main ones featured) as they mingle, make chitchat and attempt to entertain one another. When Skye, Paltrow's character, whips out her gift for the Therrians - 16 pills of Ecstasy - the situation quickly changes. The drug works as a truth serum, allowing the partygoers finally to discuss their marital problems, love and parenthood without the formalities they normally have to endure.
The idea of using Ecstasy to induce a more truthful environment is not an original one. Dozens of movies have used drugs and alcohol as an excuse for letting their characters blurt out things they would not normally have said. With a predictable premise and the zig-zaggy way in which the film tries to capture so many storylines, it is easy to see why many people would consider this movie to be boring and pointless.
Indeed, finding a theme that runs through this jumbled bunch of scenes is a challenging task. The difference between this movie, however, and many others is that if the viewer squints hard enough and considers the movie after it has been completed, they can find one. The guests at the party, all members of the entertainment industry, are too obsessed with appearance and constant stimulation that they live in some sort of pseudo-reality. Their worlds are based solely on entertainment: a movie director brings the scenes he has just filmed to the party to be viewed, a new mother has become so stressed out with balancing her movie career and parenthood that she is on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and the guests get involved in a heated game of charades that leads to ridiculous amounts of name-calling and hurt feelings. They have all sunk so far into a pit of self-absorption that they don't realize how quickly life is passing them by.
The climax of the movie comes late in the film, when Joe is struck with a family tragedy and realizes he has been too busy with his own life to notice what is happening. The life of a filmmaker or an actress may be engrossing and dramatic, but the characters need to step out of their bubbles and discover that life is more than just smiles and flashing bulbs.
When one views the movie from this perspective, the choppy, fast-moving way in which it is filmed makes sense and is, in fact, almost ingenious. The way the information is delivered to the viewer puts him directly into the characters' whirlwind lifestyles. "The Anniversary Party" will leave the viewer a little cloudy and confused, but with some time to let his thoughts settle, he will appreciate the incredible acting and uniqueness of this film.
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