This recent film has been lauded by critics as the best British film of the year if not of recent times and was a hit at Sundance. Audience response has been a bit less effusive understandably. While it is a very well-crafted piece
and will hold up well to an analysis of its direction, acting, photography, etc., it is surely not everyone’s cup of tea. Nevertheless, director Joanna Hogg is a name to be remembered.
This, her 4thfilm, is partly autobiographical and is set in the 1980’s in London. The heroine, Julie, is from a comfortably off farming family,
old money and breeding. She is an innocent creature, despite using the family’s Knightsbridge flat, and is fast confronting the codes and behaviour of real people. Most of the time she seems very aloof from them. The film is about her growth when she embarks on a relationship with an older man, a sort of dandy who is full of lies and deceit and his own tragic secrets.
At first, flattered by the attention, then horrified when truth comes out, she first breaks up with him, then, makes up and the story goes on. Thanks to very good nuanced acting by Honor Swinton Byrne
in her first main role and Tom Burke as Anthony, the story is credibly portrayed and authentic.
The story is a universal one but here it is depicted in the bosom of the well-to-do and their dull lives, despite the extra disposable income they have. Honor’s mother, Tilda Swinton,
plays the mother here, aged and gentrified but equally as compelling as she usually is on screen.
So, an intelligent script like The Party, some moving scenes
but not too many as much of the real drama occurs off screen, some smart directorial choices and a timeless story about getting involved with the wrong person,
but its rather languid pace and classist setting are an anchor for me that prevents total lift off.
♦♦♦♦
passionfilm 