BEVERLY HILLS, Calif., June 6, 2001–The Anniversary Party, an irreverent ensemble dramedy written, directed by and starring Jennifer Jason Leigh and Alan Cumming, satirizes its participants while showing that when it comes to relationships, even Hollywood types have their problems.
In the sometimes comic, sometimes scathing film, Leigh (who plays an aging actress) and Cumming (a novelist) are a married couple who hold a party celebrating their sixth anniversary, which comes on the heels of a yearlong separation. Among the guests are their friends, business partners, past and present crushes and their neighbors, who are threatening to sue the couple over their barking dog (among the cast are Gwyneth Paltrow, John C. Reilly, Parker Posey, Phoebe Cates and Kevin Kline). Over the course of the evening the champagne flows, someone breaks out the Ecstasy, and suddenly all bets are off–as are most everyone’s clothes.
Marriage…aging…drugs…dogs… any of this autobiographical?
“Well, I’m not married to Jennifer Jason Leigh and I don’t live in Hollywood!” says Cummings with a laugh.
“People make assumptions about celebrity, and we play upon this,” says Leigh. “The neighbors represent the audience. They don’t know anyone, don’t come from Hollywood. They come in with all these assumptions but at a certain point the wife says, ‘They’re like us.’ But her husband is bitter and envious.
“We’re satirizing and indicting Hollywood, where success equals youth,” adds the 38-year-old Leigh, whose character Sally is dealing with growing older in Hollywood and losing parts–like the one in the movie being made about her own life–to younger actresses. “It’s true, there are no parts for aging women–even the youngest woman in this movie lies about her age! I’ve never lied about my age. You are your age and you look the age you look.”
Then of course there’s the point late in the evening where the guests take Ecstasy, which acts as a truth serum for everyone’s true feelings, good and bad. “It was definitely a plot device. People say things they wouldn’t normally say,” she says. “Only your best friend will tell you the most horrifying things about your life.”
“That drug was risqué enough but common enough…X makes people feel good yet not out of control,” Cumming adds. “One thing I hate is bad drug acting!”
But Otis, the dog in question, plays himself–he’s Leigh‘s real-life pet. “He’s a major catalyst for events in my life,” she says. “But he doesn’t bark! We tried to get him to, we brought a gerbil in a cage, played with him with the furry thing that covers the boom mike, but he wouldn’t do it!”
Leigh and Cumming wrote the all-star cast members’ roles specifically for each of them after they agreed to appear in the film. “We used essences of people, asked all our friends in the film to play elements of themselves. Gwyneth [who plays a young starlet Sally feels threatened by] enjoyed parodying herself. Lisa Kudrow bowed out of the Parker Posey role. Parker‘s a real laugh. She’s bonkers,” Cumming says. “It was nice to write for people you know who have strong personalities.”
At one point in the movie some party guests get up to pay tribute to the reunited couple, whether by saying a few words, singing a song, offering a gift or even putting on a little act, as Kevin Kline does with his real-life daughter. “We wanted the actors to give their own toasts. It was like homework; they took a couple weeks to think about what to do. They were actually nervous. And we were genuinely surprised,” Cumming says.
“Kevin and Phoebe’s characters are close to the real thing, not exact, but close,” Leigh adds. “We included scenes [like one with the Kline children] that I’ve actually seen happen at Phoebe’s.”
Leigh and Cumming decided they wanted to make a film together after they appeared in the Broadway stage show Cabaret together a few years ago. Once their schedules allowed, they collaborated on everything. Cumming storyboarded the entire film while Leigh worked getting the budget, the crew and cast together. “It was almost a hobby. We could have crocheted but we decided to make a film,” he says, laughing. “We were so prepared we were almost anal.”
The duo was able to get the whole thing shot in 19 days with a $3.5 million budget. The secret to keeping it economical, it turns out, was to shoot entirely on digital video using top-of-the-line Sony DSR-500 cameras. “We had no money,” Leigh asserts. “It doesn’t really look like digital video, but more like film thanks to the great job our d.p., John Bailey, did.”
“There’s good and bad about DV,” Cumming adds. “It really works well for this film. It gave it a more voyeuristic feel.”
Especially when half the cast is either skinny-dipping in the pool, wandering around the couple’s beautiful Neutra house in the Hollywood Hills, or having a nasty argument up on those hills.
“This movie examines many marriages. You get the sense they’re flawed. Will [our characters] survive? You don’t know,” Leigh says. “It’s the beauty of relationships, that you can love someone so much even though they’re not right for you.”
The Anniversary Party is playing now in Los Angeles and New York.
