REVIEW: THE PARTY

THE PARTY is a solid coming-of-age teen drama from director Kevin Stevenson and writer Ryan McCoy, adapted from the YA novel "Party" written by Tom Leveen.

It takes place over the course of one night, following the fate of Beckett Montgomery (Sara-Catherine Bellamy) who acts as our through-line, and the various friends/associates of hers that all intersect at The Party in the title.

Beckett is suicidal over the loss of her mother to illness, Morrigan (Michelle Redman) has a troubled home life and is looking to blow off some steam, Tommy (Kennedy Porter) is trying to help out his best buddy Josh (Lyndon Hoffman-Lew) get over a recent heartbreak and Azize (Ebin Antony) is just looking for a place to fit in.

Of course, this only scratches the surface of the large ensemble cast, as there a number of interweaving stories that blend together well with some nicely done fourth-wall breaking.

Now I will say that this film and its source material doesn't dig up any new ground, as it contains a lot of the standard tropes of the teen high school party experience, but that by no means is a negative assessment because I felt right out of the gate this film had some serious John Hughes 80's teen movie vibes, and I was here for it. I thought that all of the notes that it was aiming to hit, it hit squarely on the head, although it was definitely more drama than comedy, there were nice touches of levity throughout.

The young cast performed exceptionally well, and you could tell right away that while this was a lower budget indie, this was made by people who know how to work well within those limitations. The story was compelling and moved at a brisk pace, all of which was helped by crisp visuals and great attention to technical detail.

As I said in the beginning, this is a solid teen/YA film that has enough meat on its bones to appeal to a wide audience. Definitely worth a watch!