The Sunshine Coast Film Society (SCFS) has kicked off its spring season not with a party – but with The Party. A shocking, acerbic, 71-minute U.K. comedy-drama, directed by renowned Sally Potter, it drew an almost packed house at the Heritage Playhouse in Gibsons on Jan. 7.
The theatrical, drawing-room setting provides a real-time, pressure-cooker atmosphere in which Janet’s (Kristen Scott Thomas) political promotion celebration dinner becomes a comical soup of affairs, vomit, betrayals, catatonia-interrupted-by-impending-death, heroin, announced separations and, yup, something about murder.
The black and white filming adds to the alternately zany, then bleak, always unexpected happenings in just three rooms and a yard. The cast is a veritable treasure of U.K. theatrical greats – Kristen Scott Thomas, Timothy Spall, Bruno Ganz, Emily Mortimer and Patricia Clarkson.
And then, there’s that ending.
The Party will be shown again at Sechelt at Raven’s Cry Theatre, 2 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 19.
Following that, the next film shows Monday Jan. 21, at Gibsons Heritage Playhouse. The multiple award-winning Leave No Trace is simply beautiful to watch. Director Debra Granik (Winter’s Bone) gently presents life’s conflicting moments and allows viewers to actively participate in them, all set against the beautifully-shot backdrop of Northwestern Pacific forests.
In the film, dad Will (Ben Foster) a PTSD sufferer from military service, takes to the Oregon forest with his 13-year-old daughter, Tom (Thomasin McKenzie) to live off the grid, illegally, in parks. A tiny error brings them forcefully into modern living conditions and urban society, where Dad cannot cope but maturing daughter perhaps can. Filled with struggles, depth, compassion, subtlety and love, a climax to their situation must come, yet it is still a surprise.
Other SCFS upcoming attractions include:
• Three Identical Strangers, a U.K. documentary about New York triplets that will leave you shaking your head about the human condition.
• Unarmed Verses, a Canadian documentary unveiling a 12-year-old’s writings, and emotions about her dissolving Toronto community.
• The Insult, a Lebanese/French drama (English subtitles) about a trivial comment between a Christian and a Moslem over a leaky pipe that leads to a high-stakes courtroom battle.
• Gifted, a U.S. drama about a child prodigy – shall she have a “special” life or a “normal” life, and who decides.
• The Wife, a U.K./Swedish drama with Glenn Close as the wife who sacrificed much – until … Ms. Close won the 2019 Golden Globe Best Actress in a Drama for this one.
• The season closer, Ash is Purest White, a Chinese drama (English subtitles) about a romance, a gangster, a prison spell, a lover’s epic journey.
Dates and locations for SCFS events are on the website at www.scfs.ca. Prices are $5 for Film Society members and $9 for single event. Annual memberships for $20 are sold at the door and online. Gibsons tickets are also available (for members only) online and in advance.
– Submitted by Gretchen Bozak
