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Kibbles 'n' Tits

By Tricia Olszewski
Washington City Paper | April 28, 2006
Turning to the family-unfriendly side of cookie-cutter mediocrity, Charlie’s Party is about a New York woman throwing a cell-phone—that is, partner-swapping—get-together for her 30th birthday. Sound like a ticket to sloppy soft-core fun? On the contrary: It’s quite unlikely that there’s another orgy movie out there that’s more boring or irritating.

Written and directed by first-timer Catherine Cahn, the 80-minute film amounts to little more than the story of a spoiled brat trying to force her miserable, personality-free friends to sleep with one another. Charlie (Alissia Miller, who looks a good 35, 36) is a former hotshot VJ who’s now miserably selling knickknacks on the Home Value Shopping Network. She’s throwing the party not only to show how hip she still is but to prove to her boyfriend, Dylan (Chris Tardio), that she doesn’t care that he slept with another former VJ, the Frederick’s of Hollywood–model–looking Zoe (Kim Director), who’s now up for an Oscar. (This rationale, it should be noted, is more clearly explained in the press-kit synopsis than in the film.)

Charlie even invites Zoe to the party, along with Jane (Nancy Anne Ridder), a former college friend who’s now a lesbian; Sarah (Sabrina Lloyd), an uptight writer; and Tom (Mark H. Dold), Sarah’s husband, who visits prostitutes because he and his wife apparently never have sex. A goofy, insecure guy named Nick (Eron Otcasek) is also asked to, um, come.

Even though everyone is reluctant to go, soon they’re all in the throes of such only-in-the-movies expressions of anticipation as rehearsing conversations in front of mirrors and practicing kissing on pillows. Then they’re tarted up, headed to the Connecticut home of someone’s mother, and drinking heavily—which even a teetotaler would do when faced with Charlie, who wears nearly circuslike makeup and screeches, “I am turning 30, and I’m not going to let anyone fuck this up!” You’d question why this woman even has friends, except that the rest of them are jerks, too.

Charlie’s Party gets briefly titillating when the partygoers quit snapping at each other—they still don’t want to go through with the sex, see—and start talking about their fantasies during dinner. But then, as you knew they would be, asses are freed and minds follow. Even though no one in the group, not even any member of the two couples, seems to have any chemistry with anyone else, a few end up in a threesome; others apparently have potentially life-altering experiences together. During a montage of the postcoital swappers, there’s a laughable song whose theme is having someone to come home to. Even more laughable is the solemn trip back to New York, on which every character is implicitly thinking deep thoughts. That’s dumber than all of the movie’s nitwit characters combined.
Tags: Catherine Cahn, Charlie's Party

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