The Anniversary Party, which opens this Friday at the Kendall Square and the Coolidge Corner, slides by without a car crash, a special effect, a cop, or a randy teen. Instead, its heartiest pleasure is a grandly entertaining acting ensemble. Some members are very famous (Kevin Kline, Gwyneth Paltrow), some are sort of famous (Jennifer Jason Leigh, Phoebe Cates, Jennifer Beals), some are cult-famous (John C. Reilly, Jane Adams, Parker Posey, Alan Cumming), and some are not famous (Denis O’Hare, Michael Panes, Mina Badie). But they all rein in their thespian egos.

Too bad that the story (written by the film’s directors, Leigh and Cumming) isn’t, despite the fizz of the dialogue, a more stirring and less predictable one. The LA shindig thrown to celebrate six shaky years of a Hollywood marriage is an obvious set-up for a Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?–style breakdown of the fragile partygoers. As the guests trickle in, the DVD-shot, Dogme-inspired tale gives us social awkwardness; it will devolve, of course, into snappish truth telling, ruthless soul baring, and the requisite sexual swapping. Inhibitions soar away courtesy of tabs of Ecstasy. Nipples are bared, people swim at the bottom of the swimming pool, odd couples match up. Then a shocker death. The characters sit up and ponder what’s truly essential, and they discover there are things more important than the much ado of a solipsistic party.

Cumming and Leigh play the celebrants, Joe and Sally Therrian, and even for kooky-connubial Hollywood, their marriage seems a stretch. Joe’s a big-dimpled, Stan Laurel–looking Brit writer with a history back home of drugs, raves, and bisexual promiscuity. Sally’s a bit of a self-parody for Leigh: saturnine, out of the glam loop, with Actors Studio mumbles, and, deep in her 30s, losing her spot in Hollywood. Joe has been hired to write and direct a movie from his autobiographical novel about their marriage, but instead of casting his wife as herself, he’s spent $4 million to get young and delectable superstar Skye Davidson (Paltrow, blonder than ever).

Skye in jeans slinks into the party and notes cattily of Sally that “you’re my favorite living actress.” Paltrow gets to be pretty funny; other actors are stranded waiting for their confrontational scenes. I enjoyed the muggings of Jane Adams as a hysteric actress discombobulated by a recent pregnancy. And Mina Badie creates sweet counterpoint as a straitlaced neighbor who feels unworthy at a hip film party.

The Anniversary Party occasioned a packed closing night for this month’s Newport International Film Festival, which achieved greater-than-ever success in its fourth year of operation. The not-so-artsy citizenry of the Rhode Island boating-and-mansions town finally came out in support, and many screenings actually sold out. Even offbeat documentaries, Newport’s artistic strength from the beginning, filled a bit with other than out-of-towners and critics. Yes, 2001 was a mighty good year, and most of all because Newport landed some impressive not-even-at-Sundance-or-Cannes premieres:

Daddy and Them. Written and directed by Billy Bob Thornton, this is an original white-trash comedy in the old-time vein of Erskine Caldwell’s Tobacco Road. Thornton and Laura Dern play funny, loopy-in-love Arkansas marrieds who feud jealously whenever they aren’t making love. They are surrounded by the nuttiest family clan, with ol’ Andy Griffith as the energetic patriarch. A hoot!

A Huey P. Newton Story. This first-rate new film by Spike Lee documents the extraordinary one-person stage performance of Roger Guenveur Smith as the volatile ’60s Panther leader. An amazing piece of writing and acting made cinematic by Lee.

Last Ball. This lovely, poignant American indie about a taxi driver moony in love and too paralyzed to leave his no-chance tiny home town is based on times in the life of talented writer/director Peter Callahan. It was shot right where it happened, in Hastings-on-Hudson.

Grateful Dawg. These relaxed, joyful acoustic-music sessions from pals Jerry Garcia and mandolinist David Grisman derive from family tapes from the early ’90s recorded by Grisman’s daughter, Gillian. Filmmaker Grisman admitted at Newport that it took years for her to warm to her father’s folky tastes. “There would always be some balalaika player from Czechoslovakia sleeping on our couch. All I wanted was to be able to do my homework.”

Gerald Peary can be reached at gpeary@world.std.com.

Issue Date: June 21-28, 2001