The Party's Just Beginning

The Party's Just Beginning-720P

The Party's Just Beginning-480P

TPJB Before watching, all I knew was that Karen G wrote/directed/and starred in this. I knew nothing of the story. That being said, I think the title is out of place. The title of this review is my opinion of what it should've been called. This picture is full of heartbreaking moments, that build and build, leading up to clarity. It's definitely a 'stages of depression,' type. The progressive themes, fair dialogue, grand acting and beautiful music splash onto the canvas that is 'The Party's Just Beginning." I will however think of the title as the tagline for Miss G's future art yet to come.

This is definitely not comedy. It is a not funny at all. Overall, this is not a bad debut for Karen Gillan but nothing to be excited about. I haven't seen Matthew Beard's films before but he is surprisingly good here. Lee Pace is always reliable but he has little to work with in this movie. Karen is a bit disapppointing here but since the movie is about how her charcter sleepwalks though her life following her best friend's suicide, I can't tell for sure if her portrayal is intentional. My biggest problem with the movie is that timelines got mingled together. Coupled with the hallucination/ ghost, it is hard to tell what really happened and when it happened. Luckily, the movie have little plots and it really doesn't matter too much if you can't follow.

I've loved Karen Gillan ever since Doctor Who and I've followed her career since then. Her debut as a director comes off as true to herself, as if every single step was made with Karen's approval first. This film feels so determined in the story it wants to tell and absolutely commited to its characters and plot development. Karen's performance is also admirable as she turns into this reckless person who is struggling to cope with loss. I'm glad she chose to deal with heavy themes like this because it's important to make them visible for anyone out there who may feel identified with such a troubled state of mind. It's a great first effort for her and hopefully she will continue down this path of making small but highly compelling indie films. If her future endeavours are also set in her native Scotland, it will certainly add a much more absorbing atmosphere, since she really succeeded in capturing a strong sense of Scotland's environment. It's what she knows, so if she embraces her roots she could even make Scotland as if it was another character, much like Woody Allen did with New York or Jean-Luc Godard did with Paris. By all means, Karen, be my guest and keep doing your thing, I'm excited for more.

If you've ever read the book or seen "Trainspotting" the film, you know that it gives an unfiltered look at what heroin addiction is and its effect on people, all through the eyes of the main character Mark Renton. In a very similar fashion, "The Party's Just Beginning" gives you a glimpse into the hellish world of depression. Karen Gillan did an amazing job writing and directing this film, which is especially surprising (and awesome) because it's her first. As a directorial debut it's a hit, but even from a seasoned director this would easily be a winner. Like any film that deals with such a specific and supremely dark subject matter (and being so bleak as it is), it's certainly not going to win everybody's heart. However it's that bleakness that Karen managed to capture which really resonated with me, and is portrayed so well, both in the film's characters and its substance. In fairness, I must admit to some bias, as I've always found Karen gobsmackingly beautiful. With that said, if you've ever struggled with depression, this is likely to resonate with you. And if you're like me, it's going to leave you crying and writing good reviews. Finally worth mentioning is that the last film I gave a 9/10 to was "Pulp Fiction"; indeed, I liked it that much, and I can't say enough good things about it.

Chastising small town Scottish life to indifferent yet surly pubsters more interested in their drink than this open mic looney, Liusaidh delivers her trash talk with poetic vigour before stumbling out for her nightly shag and take away. As Liusaidh, (Lucy or Loosey) Karen Gillan owns the screen, as she trudges through her insufferable existence, something her best friend decided against a year's past. Her nightly drink/shag/fries concludes with a stagger over the train bridge favoured by local jumpers, and visions of her dear departed, departing. This unsettling tragedy of events soon becomes mundane with repetition, as is everything in the unfortunate ville of Inverness. Staring into deep dead space from the local deli counter, under harsh fluorescents and a tight hairnet, she encounters a new bloke interested in more than just processed meats, and we are off. "The Party's Just Beginning" doesn't follow the paint by numbers movie canvass, instead delivering a choppy story in jumpy time slices, with equal doses of edgy humour and dark pathos. Attention must be paid. Although there are glimmers of hope, the film, like it's perpetually grey, dead end town, has trouble finding a rainbow among the clouds, and that may be the point. This one, for better or worse, or both, stays with you.

24 year old Liusaidh (Karen Gillan) lives an aimless life in Inverness. She works at the cheese counter in a supermarket. She gets drunk in bars, screws random strangers, and eats chips to finish the nights. She watches a guy jump off a bridge and seems uneffected. She sees a neighbor hang himself. Her best friend Alistair is struggling with his homosexuality. She encounters Dale (Lee Pace) intent on committing suicide from the same bridge. This is Karen Gillan's theatrical directing and writing debut. The intention is interesting. In more skilled hands, the back and forth in time would be better handled. A veteran filmmaker would have some definitive physical identifiers to differentiate the two timelines. It leaves the structure of the movie a little confused. At first, I thought she may be Sixth Sensing. Otherwise, this is an effective performance of self-destruction. It's also an interesting first stab. It's not mind blowing but it shows some promise.

I finally watched this and I wasn't thrilled with it. I did stick with the film, though I paused it many times to do something else. Anyway, the story is depressing - that's the point of the plot, anyway - and having been to Inverness, I can see how there wouldn't be much to do but get up to no good. There's a bit of story somewhere in there, but the message gets lost in all the extraneous things going on and people who's stories you never get to finish. Loads of loose ends left at the end. Overall, though, for a first effort directorial debut, it's not bad. At least Gillan wrote about home and what she probably knows best growing up in Inverness. But the film was too long and seemed to drag on in parts. Some better editing may have helped some.

There are some UK dialects that are challenging for the rest of the English speaking world, including other UK speakers, to understand. This was one of them. To make matters worse the audio level controls were all over the place; even important phone conversations were indecipherable. Making matters even more worse, enunciation was often poor. Conclusion: I guess narrative & storytelling is not important. The kicker - they were too cheap to add subtitling for all the aforementioned reasons & as a courtesy to deaf, hard-of-hearing, and non-English speakers. As for the story: Lots of flashbacks to confuse you, smoking, drinking, drugs, bad sex (fortunately not shown) followed by french fries (that adds diet to the naughty list), usual wild bar scenes w/ dumb karaoke. Supposedly our actress is having a tough time in life - I would call it self indulgent pity. Acting really wasn't needed; just look depressed.