(1996)
2.5
Brian J. Dillard
It may feel disrespectful to heap opprobrium on a film as well-intentioned as this drama about AIDS and assisted suicide. But rarely has a movie flitted past such weighty issues on its way to so many soap-opera clichés and sadly misguided in-jokes. No matter how personal It's My Party was for writer/director Randal Kleiser, the final product is the type of maudlin mess that can only come from a lack of perspective. Sentimental when it should be darkly witty, scatological when it wants to be clever, and campy whenever it aims for a higher emotional register, the entire film reeks of self-satisfied liberal back-slapping. A who's who of gay and gay-friendly thespians pitched in and worked for scale, but it's hard to identify a single one who cuts through the self-pitying bathos to evoke a remotely authentic human emotion. Margaret Cho does distinguish herself, but only in her willingness to condescend to what she perceives as her built-in queer audience (a tendency that would eventually render her standup comedy all but unwatchable). It's tragic that veteran filmmaker Kleiser's real-life partner contracted AIDS and eventually killed himself. But it's incomprehensible that Kleiser would translate the experience into such a self-indulgent mess.
It's My Party on AllMovie
It's My Party (1996)
