Many viewers will be confused by the big conflict of The Party: the straight edge boy saving himself for marriage, as it doesn’t make sense if you know nothing about straight edge and the meaning of the black Xs on his hands. The Turkish teen is totally Fezzed by being portrayed solely through immigrant stereotypes, including a heartfelt dream to run his father’s falafel shop. Also, while all the performers do high-quality work here, they are all way too old to play believable high school students.
So why am I eventually getting around to telling you to give this overgrown teenager movie a try? Because the problems here are the same problems that have cropped up with teen movies since the dawn of the genre. And this movie is much better directed than nearly all of them. Stevenson gives us a cornucopia of fantastic visual compositions with skin-tingling hyper-stylized lighting. The neon color palette wraps around the holiday lights and decorates the film like a plutonium tree.
” …shines brightly in the downer Christmas movie category…”
While it is a mediocre teen film, The Party shines brightly in the downer Christmas movie category that is perennially hip. It has a lot of parallels to my all-time favorite Christmas movie, Less Than Zero. Both movies acknowledge the special place young people hold in their hearts for the holidays for getting totally wasted. They also highlight the premature dead ends so many teens find themselves in and the self-destructive methods they employ to deal with them. Turns out this is exactly how many people of all ages feel during Christmas, making it a bitter holiday treat for the season.
Stevenson fully commits to the holiday setting by working several instrumental arrangements of Christmas classics into the musical score. Any weaknesses inherent to the teen genre are covered up with excellent cinematic wrapping paper, making this the perfect acid counterbalance to the regular whimsical holiday treacle. The Party is an exercise of style over substance abuse that delivers a special Christmas gift for the doomed.
"…style over substance-abuse that delivers a special Christmas gift for the doomed. "
