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Pictures by
Alden Mason
Deception Pass," by Alden Mason, watercolor, 1941
Tattle Tale
Honeymoon Blues
Spirit Bird 1
Strange Bird No. 2
Abstraction
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MOVIE, THE ANNIVERSARY PARTY (2001)
The Party starts
This is a Jennifer Jason Leigh
vehicle.. Leigh and co-star Alan Cummings wrote the script and directed
the movie. They had met earlier on the set of a stage version of Caberet
and liked working together, so the collaboration was natural.
Leigh as Sally Nash A
fine film it is. Leigh has never looked so lovely; her body is toned and
sexy. She moves with great self-knowledge. The camera uses light and
shadow as effectively as though Alan Rudolph had shot it. The
walls of the home are covered with black-and-white photographs. The
camera quick cuts to them in order to underline the movie's stylistic
indebtedness to still photography. In this sense the movie has a
correspondence to Woody Allen's Manhattan, only the coast are switched,
as are the use of colors. The
story is one of couples, namely, Sally Nash and Joe Therrian, who
are married, but in the modern (read: Hollywood) sense keep their
original names and sense of freedom, however deceptive. They are
experiencing their third wedding anniversary with a huge party of
friends, associates, and it would appear thinly disguised enemies. Leigh
retains the name she had in Caberet, Sally, and Joe is a novelist who is
trying to restart his career by directing a play his wife is in. In
real life, the script is based on a popular novel written by Cummings--Tommy's Tale. And
if the actors didn't know each other well enough before hand to form an
ensemble or reparatory company, they surely do after and during the time
the movie was shot. It evidences a real sense of closeness and
cooperation, the actors closely identifying with the characters and
attributing to them real life qualities. For
instance, Kevin Klein appears as Cal Gold, and his real life wife,
Phoebe Cates, is his wife Sophia. The Klein kids play their movie kids.
This certainly has an ensemble effect. It is also nice to see such an
attractive family working harmoniously together. 
Kevin Klein and John C. Reilly share a joint as
the party gets underway
The
movie begins and closes with an intimate scene between Joe and Sally,
forming a kind of rondeau or sonata. The couple prepares for their
anniversary party and the seeds of dissention seem watered in the
process. Guest dribble in and are warmly greeted, even when neither Joe
nor Sally seems to feel much affection for them. The party begins
slowly, then catapults into noise and turmoil. The occasional joint gets
smoked and lots of wine and whiskey ingested. A game of charades is
played and these Hollywood characters become acutely intense. People
show their true selves, and these are in many cases surprising. Nobody
is quite what he markets himself as being. Their emerging personalities
are layered, complex, and often contradictory. As
the evening wears on people loosen up more. Gwymeth Paltrow arrives with
tabs of the drug, Ecstasy, and lays them out on the table. Almost
everyone ingests without a second thought. Then the saturnalia begins.
Some people become more intensely themselves, while other undergo
personality reversals. Others become kinder, more thoughtful, or
contemplative persons. The film
has been criticized as encouraging the use of drugs, but it is hard to
read this into it. I accept (at least artistically) that the film fairly
accurately reflects the world of recreational drug users, at least in
upper-middle class Los Angeles. To read any more into it would be
unwise. It is how many people live today, like it or not. New
angers emerge, while old ones seemingly are healed. Deep-seated grudges
burst forth. People become the people they would like to be, at least
for the moment, and this surprises themselves and the others. Evening
becomes night becomes morning. People drift off to resume the uncertain
lives they abandoned only a day ago. Some feel themselves to be changed,
but nothing really has changed. It is simply the next day and the people
are ostensibly the same. Or are they? The
implication is they are. At least Joe and Sally have survived yet
another party and a day and night together. Life goes on. All are subtly
changed. But they--and we, who have made the trip along with them--have
learned a thing of two, and the learning process is unsettling. Joe
cannot for long deny his wandering eye. Sally knows this and is
experiencing a trauma in her career. She is considerable pain, uncertain
as to what the future holds for her. Should she put her acting career on
hold and have a child, hoping it will bind her to Joe, or should she
continue along the same old path that produced the pain? Will Joe be
there for her in the future? There is the implication that the sensual
bond between them is based largely on mutual distrust and anxiety. This
intensifies their sexual attraction.
Party's over, or is it the marriage? Where
does this leave love, or is there any such thing, anymore? The movie
tells us what such a life is like, but avoids any superficial
resolution--as much as we might like to have one. There is no easy
answer today, if there ever has been one, which is doubtful. This cold
realistic assessment is what gives us an uneasy feeling all through the
film and afterwards. The realism is Chekhovian. It is also how things
are for all of us. The movie tells us how things are, not how we might
want them to be. And sometimes the truth hurts. That's
what truth is: it is what hurts you. Robert
Arnold, Editor
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