Party Girl

Against my better judgement, and since the other crappy movies I tried to get weren’t on the library shelf, I watched Party Girl last night.

My questions are, who wrote that crap, and how did it ever get made, but mostly, who did they think their audience was?

The plot: Party Girl, Parker Posey, lands herself in jail and her matronly, menopausal, spinster librarian godmother gets her a job in her library. At first Parker is resistant to the library and all its rules, but eventually turns herself and the library around. Valuable lessons are learned by all and they all live happily ever after

How it unfolds: Parker throws house parties for cash in her barren but giant NY loft, which is illegal. She also crashes hotel parties and steals designer clothes. And she gets arrested in the first 5 minutes.

In an early scene we see her in her loft with her gay fashionista friends, and she tells him, “don’t touch those, they’re in order” and he replies “they’re jeans.” Which gives us our first hint that maybe she’s cut out for a life of organization.

After a few false starts at the library, and some snooty workers, things look up for Parker. She smokes a little pot in the back, and the giant poster of Dewey starts staring at her. And we have a library montage of shelving and organizing and learning Dewey Decimal. A library montage, complete with music, cartwheels, closing the card catalog drawers to the beat, and skating on book carts. This trumps the library dance scene in the Breakfast Club, by far (which was also pot induced, if I remember correctly).

And she really settles in, meanwhile still into the party scene. And then at closing time one day her crush the foreign falafel vendor comes in and asks for info on how to be a teacher, she helps him, one thing leads to another. And the inevitable happens, sex in the stacks. All wrapped up in the moment, she doesn’t realize she’s left the windows open, and the next morning she gets fired, because she left the window open, and a condom on the top of the trash. (at least it got to the trash can)

Heartbroken she has no job, no income and sells all her fantastic (stolen) clothes to cover the rent, and after a drunken hallucination, she marches back to the library and demands her job back, the librarian won’t hear any of this crap during work. So they arrange a time to meet at Parker’s loft. Meanwhile at the library all the other workers try to help her as she tells them she wants to go to library school. And for about 1 min they sit around the table books open, hitting on the finer points of academic v public librarianship, differences in programs, locations. Super boring for the common folk, and not news to library folk. (Seriously, how is this a movie?) I imagine my reaction is something like how scientists feel when actors start spouting off crap about science.

For the denouement, Parker returns home to find her crazy party friends have thrown her a surprise party. Seconds later spinster-librarian trudges up the steps and wanders in on loud revelry. Meanwhile Parker is dressed in a super-conservative designer outfit and is trying to force everyone to go home. Of course, they don’t listen. Spinster librarian is in shock, but the mob slowly convinces her to give Parker another chance “she card catalogued my records” “she organized this and that,” “she helped me find info on how to be a teacher.” And the librarian is shocked by the last one, she’s not a trained professional, how dare she help find info! however did Parker do it? Well she tells us, ad nauseum, in an exchange that only lasts a few seconds, but feels like forever based on all the library buzz words: state certifications, telnet, FTP… good lord, who the heck cares?

And of course librarian gives the job back, and agrees to help get Parker into library school. They break the piñata, and the movie ends just as Spinster Librarian is about to bite into a pot brownie.

My Issues: Ignoring the fact that the movie sucks, and the early 90’s style is a bit overwhelming, there are only minor issues. Librarians generally like this movie because Parker’s character offers a younger, hiper alternative to the spinster librarian stereotype. But, the Spinster librarian is awful, and in the beginning, so is the other library staff. One major flaw in the movie is that the librarian keeps telling Parker “your mother was a woman with no common sense,” implying the same about Parker. She repeatedly says this, but it never comes out why. It’s very confusing, and distracting to expect a back story, and never get one. And Spinster librarian is really just a bitch. Although, under the bitch exterior she does have a love of the profession and a deep desire to protect it.

IMDB is obviously wrong with a 6.4/10 star rating. The movie is rated R for drug use and profanity. Yea for R rated library movies?

And have I mentioned the NEW, DELUXE librarian action figure. I will be getting her next time I order from Archie McPhee.

And the new REX LIBRIS, librarian comic is out.

Next up: review of Desk Set, hopefully a better librarian movie