Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.

Morning in Hollywood's Laurel Canyon. Birds are singing The dog is frisking. The Latina maids are pulling the day together for their employees at the rancher home of Joe and Sally. Novelist-turned-director Joe Therrians (Robert Cumming) is back in the U.S. after a year off for a bisexual break in his native Britain. Sally, known professionally as Sally Nash, has been an established minor star for a number of years. She has been emotionally shaken by their separation, and is having difficulty concentrating on her role in a new movie. As the movie begins, the pair are going through Yoga exercises with their personal trainer. It is the day of their Sixth Anniversary.

And they are going to celebrate it with an anniversary party.

Another Perfect effing Day in La-La Land?

Far from it, we learn in the course of the next 24 hours that we spend with the couple and their friends. Nothing particularly significant happens for much of that time, but when something does, it brings much of the rest of this comic-drama into perspective.

By the time the first guests arrive, with some help from Sally, the maids, America (Norizzela Monterossa) -- "God Bless America," as a sign in the kitchen says -- and Rosa (Clara Demedrano), have laid out a bountiful buffet. The guests are a mixed group, ranging from the next door neighbors, Ryan and Monica Rose (Denis O'Hare, Mina Badie), who hate Sally's German shepherd, to tall, blonde, beautiful rising star, Skye Davidson (Gwyneth Paltrow), who has the lead in Joe's movie.

In between, there is Sally's co-star Cal Gold (Kevin Kline) with wife Sophia (Phoebe Cates), an old friend of hers. They bring their two children, who sing the kind of corny but endearing song of celebration which children are occasionally put up to. [This, as many of you will know, is a family in real life.]

Other guests include new mother Clair Forsyth (Jane Adams), who has a prescription drug problem, and sudden urges to don Sally's Galliano gown -- or wear nothing at all -- and her husband Mac (John C. Reily), who is Sally's stressed-out director. A confirmed non-mother Judy Adams (Parker Posey) and her husband Jerry (John Benjamin Hickey) give their opinions freely. Violinist Levi Panes (Michael Panes, a Peter Sellars look-alike) and Joe's old girlfriend Gina Taylor (Jennifer Beals) arrive singly but do not connect. How these characters, and others who filter in, react with and upon each other, is the stuff of the film.

THE ANNIVERSARY PARTY presents a potential paradigm for any party, special or not, which might be held among lawyers, artists, doctors, policemen, teachers, pipefitters or Indian Chiefs and their families in America today. The shape and course of the party goes through the stages many of us have observed. There are the many introductions of people who know each other very well to others who don't know them at all. After a couple of hours, the initial embarrassment, and possible hostility, is soothed by drinks. This stage is followed by the buffet dinner, which everyone compliments. Then comes the entertainment and acknowledgments.

But, Skye, a latecomer to the party, presents her director Joe with sixteen "dolphins" (candles?) or Ecstasy pills. The party, from that point, takes a different, edgier direction. [I remember being introduced to a group of established carpenters at a party given by a contractor and his wife. Shortly, the men began to sing the bepraisements of a drug called Ecstasy, which they had enjoyed at their last party. It was the first time I ever came across anyone who admitted taking the stuff.]

The style of THE ANNIVERSARY PARTY owes something to Paul Thomas Anderson (MAGNOLIA, 2000), perhaps because a few of the tecnical people, and one or two of the actors, have worked for Anderson. More to the point, here we are in Henry Jaglom country (LAST SUMMER IN THE HAMPTONS, 1995). But Leigh and Cumming, I believe, are more concentrated than Anderson, and more dramatically effective than Jaglom, in their first outing.

In reading reviews of THE ANNIVERSARY PARTY, I was struck and puzzled by the hatred some people displayed toward the film. Aside from the work choice of the characters and the setting in which they function, nothing so terribly unconventional takes place that might not be experienced at a middleclass suburban party anywhere in this country. The anger seemed directed toward "spoiled, undisciplined Hollywood people," who don't live like the rest of us. It struck me that 1) a year ago, when many more people were riding high in the Market, and "the Business Cycle had been repealed," the characters of THE ANNIVERSARY PARTY might have been greeted a little more indulgently. And 2) many people who have felt the corruption of American Society must be looking around for scapegoats. All that sinning, they seem to say, is the fault of Hollywood and the Media.

We're different, right?

No doubt, there is valid criticism to be shared, but to spray such venom on a couple of ambitious artists like Robert Cumming and Jennifer Jason Leigh, and their friends, for showing what may go on any Friday or Saturday night in most towns in America, is irrational and misguided. Cumming and Leigh are simply holding up a shiny mirror to humanity in our Nation at the beginning of the 21st Century. From their perspective, they are showing us what they see. As well they should.

Make no mistake, THE ANNIVERSARY PARTY is a brilliantly acted, photographed and edited slice of one night in one corner of our Country.

Cumming and Leigh wrote, directed, cast, produced and starred in this extremely watchable movie. Leigh, at least from the credits, seems to have run about decorating the set, too. She had worked with digital video in THE KING IS ALIVE last year. She and Cumming hired veteran photographer John Baily (MISHIMA, Schraeder, 1985; GROUNDHOG DAY, Ramis, 1993) to shoot THE ANNIVERSARY PARTY in the medium. All suggestions of grainy transfers or cold atmospheres are wiped away by his work. The film was edited by Carol Littleton (BODY HEAT, Kasdan, 1981) and Suzanne Spangler. The music was provided by Michael Penn (brother of Sean and Chris).

This production is a very talented and accomplished one.

If Leigh and Cumming should continue on the disciplined course they have established here, there will be no sneering reactions in future, such as Kevin Costner's self-indulgent efforts now receive.

THE ANNIVERSARY PARTY may be a bit too long, may try to deal with too much, but such ambition is to be forgiven in a first production. My attention, at least, scarcely wandered during the entire thing.

Think of the tired, foolish, hack work that Hollywood shovels into the theaters every week!

THE ANNIVERSARY PARTY should be celebrated, not condemned!

Recommended: Yes

Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age