30 Day Film Challenge Day 27: Your Favorite Independent Film

I don't know if this is my favorite indie or not. That's kind of a broad topic. It could be anything from Lost in Translation to In America. But I'm going to go with something I don't think a lot of people have seen, and that's The Anniversary Party.

Ensemble movies dont' get much better than this. Directed by both Alan Cumming and my favorite actress Jennifer Jason Leigh, they gathered a bunch of their closest Hollywood friends to make a film that I think could only be made by people in their situation. Cumming and Leigh play Joe and Sally, a Hollywood couple coming together after a lengthy separation to celebrate their sixth wedding anniversary. The entire film surrounds this party, and deals with the unique quirks and problems of their celebrity friends and neighbors. What I really dig about it, besides the two primary performances, is that the film takes a turn for the hallucinatory thanks to copious amounts of illegal drugs.  These people are all trapped in their little worlds with problems nobody else can understand, and I think it's absolutely fascinating.

The cast includes John C. Reilly, Kevin Kline and his real life wife Phoebe Cates, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jane Adams, Parker Posey, and Jennifer Beals.



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