Based on Leigh's successful stage play, this parlor piece is a showcase for Alison Steadman's brilliant comedic talents. Steadman creates characters out of body language, accent and nasal tone. Here, as Beverly, she holds her head erect as if heeding strains from The King and I, orchestrates a cocktail party for five like an impressario, and modulates her tones according to some internal voice whose messages, by film's end, we have begun to decipher. Beverly wants to be voluptuous, and so she is; her husband, Laurence, wants to be a Shakespearean scholar but will always be a real estate agent. Bev and Laurence play get-the-guest with three of their neighbors-the exceedingly mismatched Angela and Tony, and Susan, whose punk daughter is concurrently hosting the offstage bash of the film's title. A non-existent plate of olives serves as the McGuffin (or Hitchcockian distraction) while we wait for the demure, panicked Susan to break under Beverly's overkind tutelage. But it is Laurence, whose life of quiet desperation reaches its apex and then its nadir in quick succession, for whom the curtain falls. Abigail and her party were the McGuffin, after all. This black comedy is perfection in timing, dialogue (Sue, wanly, "I think I'm going to be sick"; Bev, proudly, "Oh, we've got a downstairs toilet"), and aggressively observant set design (see it to believe it).