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| Director Daisy von Scherler Mayer |
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| Mayer on the night of the premiere |
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| Mayer with Parker Posey at the premiere |
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| Mother and child, with Daisy as a child Cupid |
PARTY GIRL B USA (94 mi) 1995 d: Daisy von Scherler Mayer
They threw me a surprise birthday party without my permission. —Mary (Parker Posey)
The first feature film to be shown in its entirety on a then-novel piece of technology called the Internet on June 3, 1995, likely seen by only a few hundred viewers, streamed in the Seattle (the tech mecca at the time) offices of a web hosting company Point of Presence (operating on an Internet speed of only 1.5 Mbps, arguably the lowest fidelity movie that has ever streamed over the Internet, as the average today is 42.86 Mbps), with actress Parker Posey even appearing live online to introduce the movie while simultaneously appearing at the Egyptian Theater opening as part of the Seattle Film Festival. Never a box-office success, this is the film that made Posey a star in her first leading role, the ultimate 90’s indie girl, dubbed by Richard Corliss in a 1997 Time magazine article as the “Queen of the Indies,” referring to her ubiquitous presence playing eccentric characters in low-budget independent features like Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused (1993), Noah Baumbach’s Kicking and Screaming (1995), Mark Waters’ The House of Yes (1997), my own personal favorite along with Hal Hartley’s Henry Fool (1997), working again with him later in Fay Grim (2006) and Ned Rifle (2014), also Rebecca Miller’s PERSONAL VELOCITY (2002), Zoe Cassavetes’ BROKEN ENGLISH (2007), Michael Walker’s Price Check (2012), Woody Allen’s Irrational Man (2015) and Café Society (2016), and Kogonada’s 2017 Top Ten List #5 Columbus before recently joining The White Lotus television series as a Xanax pill-popping Southern Belle. Starring in close to 30 independent films in the 1990’s alone, Parker accumulated quite an eclectic résumé, cementing herself as one of cinema’s greatest and most underrated comedic actresses, becoming the “It girl” of the era, a term associated with actress Clara Bow in the 1920’s. Known for her sharp wit, eccentric charm, and impeccable comedic timing, from her early days in independent cinema to her ventures into mainstream Hollywood, Parker Posey has consistently defied expectations, proving herself to be one of the most versatile and captivating actresses of her generation. Unlike many Hollywood actresses who fit into traditional molds, Posey has always embraced the weird, the eccentric, and the unconventional. Her characters are often flawed, chaotic, and hilariously self-absorbed, yet they remain deeply relatable. One of her greatest strengths is her ability to deliver dialogue in a way that feels completely natural yet strangely heightened, as she always finds a way to make her characters feel authentic. Moreover, Posey has never been afraid to take risks, having gravitated toward projects that allow her to showcase her unique comedic sensibility. This commitment to authenticity has earned her a dedicated fan base that continues to grow, paving the way for a new kind of leading lady, one who didn’t need to conform to Hollywood’s rigid beauty standards or conventional storytelling tropes. Other mischievous actresses like Greta Gerwig, Aubrey Plaza, and Jenny Slate owe a lot to Posey’s trailblazing work, as she helped redefine what it means to be a comedic actress, proving that being quirky, intellectual, and slightly unhinged can be just as captivating as being glamorous or traditionally romantic. As far as the director goes, with a long career working mostly in television (her last actual movie was more than a decade ago), she grew up in New York during the 80’s, born into a Hollywood family, the daughter of famous luminaries, including her mother, theater actress Sasha von Scherler who appears in the film, and her father Paul Avila Mayer, an American soap opera television writer and producer, while her grandfather Edwin Justus Mayer was a famed Hollywood screwball comedy screenwriter, where she just happened to be a party girl in real life, drawing from many of her own personal experiences for a film that links its connection to youth culture.
Budgeted at $150,000, brilliantly shot on location in pre-gentrification Lower Manhattan by a first-time director in just 19 days, Parker, who built a career largely playing supporting roles, never really finding crossover success as a mainstream star, earning just $75 dollars a day, plays a free-spirited, club-hopping 23-year old night owl named Mary, embodying the essence of 1990’s New York cool, where the film was ahead of its time, as style is the substance here, with an attention to detail blending comedy, fashion, and a deep love for books in a way that has made it an enduring cult classic. Something of a fashionista with her distinctive personal style, often playful, vintage-inspired, and effortlessly cool, with a wardrobe stolen from the closets of women hosting parties, where her influence extends beyond film, Mary shares an apartment with her aspiring DJ roommate Leo (Guillermo Díaz), growing increasingly irritated with her former boyfriend and bouncer Nigel (Liev Schreiber with a British accent), making a living by organizing illegal rave parties in Manhattan’s underground club scene, but is arrested for charging customers at an unauthorized wild party and evicted from her Manhattan apartment for nonpayment of rent, causing her to be desperate enough to embark in a new direction. Needing money badly, she finds work as a stamper, book stacker, and desk clerk in the quiet confines of a neighborhood branch of the public library under the auspices of her overworked godmother Judy Lindendorf (Sasha von Scherler, the director’s mother), the head librarian reeling from budget cuts, who still holds a grudge over just how irresponsible Mary’s late mother was, described as “a woman with no common sense,” while her late father was “a man without a conscience,” and continues to hold that against Mary, expressing doubts that she is sufficiently intelligent or reliable enough for the task, but she is family. A little messy and discombobulated, specifically set within the LGBTQ community in Manhattan, offering authentic depictions of underrepresented communities, with many tasting freedom in the city for the very first time, often coming from towns where there was rampant prejudice, yet there is a repetitious use of quintessential club house music that dates the film, acting like a time capsule, selected by New York nightlife fixture Bill Coleman, reflective of the multi-cultural influence of the popular 90’s TV show In Living Color, along with a plethora of diverse secondary characters, where people of different ethnicities are seen dancing together, filling out a threadbare storyline. Mary rebels against what is expected of her by displaying many of the qualities of the stereotypical librarian, who are typically women, where changing her physical appearance is a way of creating an important shift in personal identity, donning horn-rimmed glasses, sticking a pencil in her pulled-back hair, while adopting severe grey flannel suits over mini-skirts and designer stilettos, laying claim to a legitimacy by exuding both the look of a more mature woman and a glamor girl in what amounts to a love letter to public libraries, suggesting it’s cool to read and also have fun. Making one blunder after another, she finds herself baffled by the Dewey Decimal System, calling it “antiquated and idiotic,” with a poster of Melvil Dewey hanging on the library wall continually frowning down on her, where she is reminded by Judy that “A trained monkey learned this system on PBS in a matter of hours,” growing so frustrated that one evening she sneaks into the library after hours with a beer and a joint and has an epiphany, seen euphorically dancing around the library to club music, suddenly unlocking the key to the entire order and system of organization. Ironically, all that hard-earned library knowledge has now been replaced by a computer, making the Card Catalog system obsolete, faded out of time, yet oozing with nostalgic vibes.
Co-written by the director with Harry Birckmayer, shot on 16mm but blown up to 35mm, premiering at the Sundance Film Festival in 1995, the film led to a television series the following year with a new cast, but was quickly cancelled, never able to realize that same sardonic tone, and of course, there is no substitute for the driving engine that is Parker Posey, yet the re-issue of the film screened at the Museum of Modern Art and the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) in New York and is part of a permanent exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York. Released the same year as Todd Haynes’ Safe (1995), Gregg Araki’s THE DOOM GENERATION (1995), and Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise (1995), the film captures that liminal period between the AIDS epidemic and the sanitizing project of Rudy Giuliani’s mayorship, a time when dance clubs played vinyl records, cigarette butts piled up in ashtrays at the bar, and entry prices were still affordable, where a repeating visual cue has Mary visiting a local Lebanese street-cart food vendor, Mustafa (Omar Townsend in his only movie), who is also an aspiring teacher and romantic interest, always heard placing the exact same order, “Can I have a falafel with hot sauce, a side order of baba ganoush, and a seltzer, please.” Theirs is a rocky romance, actually having sex in the library after hours, but she forgets to close the windows during a rainstorm when she locks up, causing all kinds of grief with Judy, as the water-soaked damage destroys some important volumes of poetry. Despite all the shenanigans, the film is a mish-mosh of a burgeoning subculture of rave joints and the rise of the Internet, accentuating a heavily talked about queer 90’s New York club culture that has come and gone, as the film’s main creative forces were women and LGBTQ people, organically espousing an attitude of inclusivity while also being incredibly fun and positive throughout. Because the cast of characters is so large and the nature of the story is episodic, it can often feel populated by sketches of characters, where all these interconnecting parts are actually much more interesting than the film itself, which is a bit chaotic and disjointed, yet confusion is part of its enduring mystery. Epitomizing the early 90’s rave era, with a deep immersion into the library sciences, Posey exhibits style and a brash attitude, portraying an over-the-top character who isn’t perfect, by any means, prone to homophobic language and inappropriate Middle Eastern cultural references, yet it’s hard to take your eyes off her. While not from New York City, a Baltimore transplant to a small town in the Deep South, many of Posey’s most iconic roles place her there, making the city her own existential playground, where her smart characters and uninhibited energy exude a self-aware, sarcastic cynicism, traits that came to be associated with abrasive and honest New Yorkers in popular culture while also serving as an implicit critical response to the conservative reshaping of the city in the eighties, taking inspiration from cinema’s other quintessential “New York girls,” such as Audrey Hepburn’s Holly Golightly in Blake Edwards’ BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S (1961) and Diane Keaton’s title character in Woody Allen’s Annie Hall (1977). While claiming Carole Lombard as an influence, Posey may come closest to the widespread appeal of 40’s and 50’s actress Judy Holliday, where her unbridled enthusiasm is mixed with an extreme vulnerability, where the refreshing ability to shift her mood quickly from frenetic screwball comedy to serious introspection provides a startling influx of emotion. An institution in indie cinema, Posey’s unique energy and fearless approach to acting have made her one of the most beloved and influential performers of her time.
