Garden Party Release Date: July 11, 2008 Starring: Vinessa Shaw, Willa Holland, Erik Scott Smith, Patrick Fischler, Richard Gunn Directed by: Jason Freeland
PREMIERE'S REVIEW (posted 7/11/08)
Take one runaway with artfully mussed hair, a hot young teen with smeared eyeliner and a smarmy step dad, a sexually confused real estate agent, a pervy photog, a porn hound, and a bombshell realtor (really?) who also deals pot to her clients (really?), and you have a movie that's trying to say something really deep about life in Los Angeles without succeeding. I was hoping there would be an actual garden party where the lost souls and creeps all got together and hung out, but no, the title refers to a song that Sammy (Erik Scott Smith) screeches backed by a band of LA teens who like to high-five each other while saying "dude" a lot.
Writer/director Freeland's attempt to interweave these characters' stories in the fashion of Altman's Short Cuts or Jarmusch's Night on Earth falls drastically short of its target. The leaden performances (Erik Scott Smith is the worst offender), the unlistenable musical interludes, the amateurish caricatures, and the short stories' lack of overall cohesion make this a garden party you should take a rain check on.
