The Party (15) ****

ONE house, seven actors and much wit. Shot in handsome black and white, we are greeted to The Party with a striking opening shot of a woman pointing a gun at our face, a metaphorical and perhaps quite literal rude welcome to a succinct but thematically exploratory domestic comedy.

The latest film from Sally Potter (Orlando, Ginger & Rosa) centres on a group of friends assembled for the dinner party of married couple Janet (Kristen Scott Thomas) and Bill (Timothy Spall) to celebrate her political promotion – the title refers both to her governmental affiliation and her carefully arranged soiree. Almost immediately revelations upset the status quo: an announcement of triplets, hidden infidelity and a devastating cancer diagnosis.

It’s a small-budget affair, limited in locale and cast but with plenty to say, pointedly observational about people’s behaviours and cultivated interactions. It’s a veritable smashing together of people’s ideals to see what spills out; the pros and cons of Western medicine, religious belief versus deep-rooted atheism, choosing political allegiance over personal principles and abhorrence of societal dogma, to name but a handful.

Throughout its breezy 71-minute runtime, it smacks a multitude of subjects across the face and in the process unearths and deconstructs these characters’ preconceived bourgeois notions and entrenched conduct.

Evoking the likes of Roman Polanski’s Carnage and Mike Nichols’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, it’s deliciously tense fun to watch, the atmosphere becoming increasingly edgy as the characters stoke the fires of annoyance and indignation, often speaking in knowingly wise proverbs only to shoot each other down.

Thanks to Potter’s clever script and great performances from a first-rate cast, you really feel the history between the characters from the get-go and this feeds fantastically into the inevitable impassioned discussions and vehement disagreements. It’s easy to find yourself on the side of whoever’s making their particular argument at any given moment.

Standouts are Patricia Clarkson who gets many of the best lines as the ultra-opinionated April – “You are a first-class lesbian and a second-rate thinker … must be all those women’s studies.” – Spall, who so brilliantly conveys a sense of sunken sadness, and Cillian Murphy giving a wonderfully unsettled performance as Tom, who spends much of his part of the drama snorting drugs in the bathroom or railing against the impending disintegration of his marriage.

Part Woody Allen-esque tragicomedy, part screwball farce and part British domestic squabble, Potter’s latest colourful offering makes for a fascinating, enjoyably wicked and all around rewarding blend.