One detail that stood out for me as Party Girl wound down was that even in a film set in the heavily gay club scene, gay BFF Derrick never gets to kiss his love interest. I don't say this to trash the film; it's just a reminder that even with the counterculture touches, the core of Party Girl is very cautious.
Parker Posey, of course, is a delight, fully committing to all sides of Mary, throwing herself into all of her scenes with wild abandon, yet an incredible amount of control. Posey was, to use the title she rightfully found constraining, "the queen of indies," but she was and is just a fascinating and consistently surprising actress, all the way from her soap work 30 years ago to today. I wouldn't say she carries this film, because it's a solid enough movie in its own right, but she easily lifts it above an average rating.
The most compelling elements of the movie involve Mary's underworld life, from the clubs to her bonds with Derrick (Anthony DeSando charming his way through a thin role) and Leo (Guillermo Diaz in a performance which makes you wish Leo could have led a movie of his own). Some of my favorite scenes involve Mary and Leo, from his fury when she rearranges his albums via the Dewey Decimal System to her joining him in the shower and sharing a kiss with him before she deems it "incest."
Liev Schreiber, trying valiantly with a British accent, plays Mary's on-off boyfriend, smarming along until a rough conclusion. This sequence (starting with a quickly thrown together party that sends Mary into a downward spiral) may be the most sustained in getting the film's message across, even if there is no proper aftermath. (if the movie was a series of scenes, rather than a narrative, it wouldn't bother me as much, but the film tries to go both ways)
Unfortunately, in spite of strong work from Sasha von Scherler as Mary's godmother/boss, the other side of Mary's life, her move to becoming more interested in being a librarian, never feels natural. We get montages, and we are told (rarely shown) how much she cares (we're even mostly told about her relationship with von Scherler), but nothing has the sense of believability or vitality as when she's in clubs and with her friends. The lack of interest in developing any of her relationships with the other librarians is a big missed opportunity.
The same goes for her romance with Mustafa, which is pleasant (other than her shoddy treatment of him near the end of the film not being properly resolved), but never feels invested in. This is another story where the montages passing as story progression gives away the apathy. I read an interview with the director where she said she wanted the film to have the reverse of the movies where the leading man have a romance with these gorgeous women. I appreciate the gender reversal, but the relationship is not really any more compelling than a number of those unbalanced pairings.
I'd definitely recommend the movie, but more for the atmosphere, the time and place in history, Parker Posey's enthralling work, and the side story with Leo's constantly-teetering-on-the-brink DJ job, over the story the film is trying to tell.
