Watching: '90s-era Parker Posey
Party Girl & Clockwatchers
Hello, my friends,
I hope you’ve had a good week. Mine’s been fine, but weirdly exhausting? I thought I’d be out and about today, snowshoeing or going for a good, long walk, but instead I played The Sims for a million hours.
And then I got hungry, so I ate cold leftover pancakes with my bare hands while STILL playing The Sims.
I am an animal.
What else has been going on this week? Via the American Mystery Classics imprint that I mentioned last week, I discovered John Dickson Carr’s Sir Henry Merrivale mysteries. Sir Henry is a sleuth who’s a lawyer AND a doctor, because one or the other is just so old hat, so why not both??? I have been, so far, delighted with them. More on those soon.
Right now, though, I want to rave about a couple of 90s-era Parker Posey movies that I finally got around to watching—and I fully admit that after watching them, I IMMEDIATELY started trawling eBay for short plaid skirts. Because woo boy, if my mid-40s aren’t the right time to start dressing like I’m in my 20s again, I don’t know if that time will ever come. So here I come, bright tights and layered long-sleeved tees, HERE I COME.
Party Girl
Daisy von Scherler Mayer, 1995
Watched on Criterion Channel
So here’s the thing: Here I am, over twenty years into my life in libraries, a decade as a library director, and I’d never seen Party Girl until now.
Years ago, I probably would have apologized for that. Not now, though. If we spent all our time watching or reading every single piece of media that someone else deemed ESSENTIAL, we’d never have time to figure out our own version of ESSENTIAL.
It’s one thing to recommend something, to say something like, “I really loved this, and I think you might love it as well,” and it’s totally another thing to say “I really loved this, YOU HAVE TO WATCH IT.” The former is an invitation; the latter is an order. And even when it isn’t MEANT as an order, my instinct is to dig my heels in and get all contrary and avoid watching a movie that I’m well aware that I’ll probably love for, like, 30 years.
But, you know, it doesn’t feel like I’ve been missing out for all those years? Because I really love discovering something that’s almost 30 years old—it’s new to me, so it’s still exciting? What an amazing thing, watching a movie that came out the year I graduated high school, and still feeling like it’s new and fresh and surprising.
For those of you who, like me, haven’t seen it: Parker Posey plays a young woman in her 20s who’s big on partying and fashion and not so much on paying her rent or, like, having a job. So her godmother has to bail her out one too many times and is like, KID, YOU NEED TO GET A JOB. GOOD THING I RUN OUR LOCAL LIBRARY BRANCH.
So Parker Posey starts working at the library, and at first she’s a huge pill, but then it turns out that she’s really goddamn good at organizing things—her clothes, sure, but yes, also the books at the library—and it turns out that, whaaaaaaat, she also enjoys the work and enjoys being good at it.
It’s called Party Girl, but one of the defining moments for our protagonist is the night that she stays in and reorganizes her roommate’s record collection, JUST BECAUSE. And then when he gets home, she runs to her bed and pretends to be casually reading, and it’s such a great and strangely wholesome character beat that it’s almost heartbreaking because it’s so unexpectedly sweet?
The fashion is incredible. Incredible. See the link below for more on that.
Liev Schreiber inexplicably plays a British jackass—if you want to see him play opposite Parker Posey as a different shade of jackass, but ultimately much more weirdly likeable, look up The Daytrippers. There’s a running bit about Sisyphus, and commentary about gentrification via a falafel cart war. It’s got a million quotable lines, and it was clearly made for about $15 and a whole lot of love. I’m delighted to have finally watched it and it’s one we’ll be revisiting for sure.
Note: As with any movie from The Past, be aware that there will be some moments that play cringey in 2023, etc., etc.
Vogue: 25 Years Later, the Makers of Party Girl Reflect on the Cult Film’s Fashion Legacy
Clockwatchers
Jill Sprecher, 1997
Watched on Tubi
So, Party Girl was a blast, and so great to look at, and I loved it.
But Clockwatchers.
Holy hell, friends, Clockwatchers is a movie of my heart.
Four young women—Toni Collette, Parker Posey, Lisa Kudrow, and Alanna Ubach—are temps currently working at the same corporate office. There’s a vague storyline about an office thief that drives some of the action, but it’s less about that and much more about female friendships and more importantly, the impermanence of friendships. It’s about trying to find a place for yourself when it doesn’t seem like there’s room for you anywhere, and about trying to fit into a box that the rest of the world seems to think that you belong in. It’s about how soul-crushing meaningless work is; about petty tyrants and hypocrisy; about the need to be seen, to make a mark, to have existed.
And even though the themes are heavy, and even though most of our main characters aren’t headed towards anything resembling happiness or contentment, it doesn’t feel heavy or dark or depressing. These characters, flaws and all, are handled with love and affection by the movie, and it feels like the movie wants the best for them even as it refuses to give them shiny, happy endings or to give us easy, platitudinous answers.
[I just looked it up, and ‘platitudinous’ is an actual word??? I really assumed I’d just made it up, heh.]
Great clothes, great dialogue, great reactions, great chemistry, great MOMENTS. A bunch of familiar faces in small roles—I was particularly happy to see Bob Balaban as one of the corporate stinkers, because I’m always happy to see Bob Balaban. And the sets are fantastic, particularly in how the corporate environment feels artificial and alien, stylized and sterile, whereas the scenes outside of the office feel much more real. I have no doubt that by the time we hit the end of this year, it’ll still be way high up on my list of new favorites. I cannot emphasize enough how much I loved this one.
Just now:
Josh: I’m going to get the rest of the cheese balls
Me: Lemon licked that whole bowl
Josh: If we cared about stuff like that, we’d both be dead
Me:
More soon,
Leila
LOL, I had a moment like you had with platitudinous with ghastlier - it's really a word but sounds like my made-up-hyperbole vocabulary.
There is so much -- verve in these old 90's fashions that they make you just happy to look at them. The color the movement - they're just so pretty. And I love that all of that style is spent on a girl who became a librarian. I know that back then it was the contrast that made it kind of fun - but I love that it probably spawned a generation of snappily dressed book men and mavens. And yessssssssss, I am here for all the tights and plaid skirts again, fifty-ish thighs be darned. Although, I'll have you know I now have Snagtights PLAID TIGHTS. So I'm already ahead of the game, and doubling up, yo.