Rating: NR
Genre: Comedy
Release Date: 02/24/2004
Distributor/Studio: Water Bearer Films

Abigail's Party originally aired as part of the BBC's influential Play for Today series. Writer/director Mike Leigh was responsible for several productions for the series, as was Dennis Potter (The Singing Detective). This filmed play was developed the same way most of Leigh's work has been -- in improvisatory workshops with the actors. It was also performed on-stage before it was filmed for television. It's a character-driven social satire. Alison Steadman (Leigh's wife, who has appeared in many of his films) stars as Beverly, the obnoxious, manipulative host of a small gathering of neighbors. Tim Stern plays Laurence, Beverly's career-driven, joyless husband. The couple has Angela (Janine Duvitski), a talkative nurse, and Tony (John Salthouse), her taciturn husband, for a visit, along with Sue (Harriet Reynolds), an unfailingly polite and timid divorced woman whose 15-year-old daughter, Abigail, is having a party that night. Beverly begins drinking and smoking before anyone else arrives, and doesn't stop throughout the night. She sets her sights on Tony the moment he walks in the door. She flirts openly with him. Laurence objects ineffectually, while Angela seems almost to encourage Beverly's interest in her husband. For his part, Tony doesn't say much. He's ill at ease, and seems to be in a very bad mood. Sue is also uncomfortable among these people, and preoccupied with what's going on at her own house. She allows Beverly to goad her into drinking until she gets sick. At one point (at Beverly's urging), Tony and Laurence go over to Sue's house to check up on things, but the reassurances they offer upon their return are unconvincing. The tension between Beverly and Laurence grows. As she taunts and belittles him, he objects to nearly everything she says and does, and the evening heads toward disaster.

~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide

Mike Leigh's Abigail's Party is a relentlessly unpleasant but fascinating social satire about an ill-fated social gathering. Leigh developed the story and dialogue by having the actors improvise their roles, as he has done throughout his career. Abigail's Party relies heavily on the performances of its five cast members, with mixed results. Alison Steadman, as Beverly, the party's rapacious and obnoxious hostess, is brilliantly over-the-top. She completely inhabits Beverly, and every line reading and physical movement seems completely organic. Steadman walks the fine line between the horrific and the comedic with bravado and aplomb. As outrageous as Beverly is, she never comes across as a cartoon, which can't be said for Laurence (Tim Stern), her snobbish husband. Stern makes every gesture bigger than it has to be, as though he were trying to compete with Steadman. Each actor is overplaying, to a certain degree, and the theatrical roots of the piece are clear, but Stern's performance is almost farcical. It stands outside the general tone of the film in a jarring way. The other performers fare better. Janine Duvitski's Angela seems like a blithering, tactless idiot at first, but she displays little glimmers of sharpness in her quiet jabs at Tony (John Salthouse), so it's believable when she turns out to be a steady hand during the climactic crisis. Harriet Reynolds is very good as the relatively sane Sue, quietly and effectively portraying her transition from discomfort to horror at the surrounding lunacy. Salthouse is amusing as the grumpy Tony, but one of the frustrations of the film is that it's impossible to figure out exactly what Tony is about. What happens when Tony and Laurence go to check on Abigail's party? What does Sue hear over the phone in the closing moments? Leigh leaves it all a nagging mystery.

~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide

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Cast:
Alison Steadman