'Party Animal' Tells of Partying Too Hard
James Scott
A poignant but humorous affair, Party Animal deals with the dangerous personal fallout of alcoholism.
Drinking takes practice. At least, that's what the protagonist in director and co-writer Adam Bowers' film Party Animal wants us to know. There are rules to the way partying, specifically partying with alcohol, should go and not following those rules is the reason behind every mishap. Raising the stakes to an almost mythical level, the chaos that ensues in Party Animal isn't the fun kind like in Superbad or Old School but rather the real kind— the after taste on a hard night of drinking.
We first meet our protagonist, Christ (played by co-writer Chris Stathis), as he explains what "drunk power" is. Drunk power is all about not giving a fuck and having a good time. As he explains, as long as you're a good person and try not to black out everything is fine.
The film fades into a party scene and we see, first hand, what drunk power looks like. It looks like Chris, red faced and cheeks bulging, spitting up beer while people around him laugh. It looks like hard dancing and screaming and having fun. It also looks like Chris waking up on the lawn of his house with his sunglasses on. As his roommates wakes him up, Chris finds out that he's being evicted as well as the fact that he's late. When confronted …show more content…
Stathis plays the ignorant well, stumbling through each interaction with timing that's just off enough to stop the joke building. And there's always a joke building, the joke that's rescued Chris from so many other scrapes we can imagine are just like the ones we see in Party Animal. But Stathis brings a flavor of desperation to Chris which is wonderful, if cringe-inducing to watch. His performance sells us on both who the character thinks he is and who he actually
James Scott
A poignant but humorous affair, Party Animal deals with the dangerous personal fallout of alcoholism.
Drinking takes practice. At least, that's what the protagonist in director and co-writer Adam Bowers' film Party Animal wants us to know. There are rules to the way partying, specifically partying with alcohol, should go and not following those rules is the reason behind every mishap. Raising the stakes to an almost mythical level, the chaos that ensues in Party Animal isn't the fun kind like in Superbad or Old School but rather the real kind— the after taste on a hard night of drinking.
We first meet our protagonist, Christ (played by co-writer Chris Stathis), as he explains what "drunk power" is. Drunk power is all about not giving a fuck and having a good time. As he explains, as long as you're a good person and try not to black out everything is fine.
The film fades into a party scene and we see, first hand, what drunk power looks like. It looks like Chris, red faced and cheeks bulging, spitting up beer while people around him laugh. It looks like hard dancing and screaming and having fun. It also looks like Chris waking up on the lawn of his house with his sunglasses on. As his roommates wakes him up, Chris finds out that he's being evicted as well as the fact that he's late. When confronted …show more content…
Stathis plays the ignorant well, stumbling through each interaction with timing that's just off enough to stop the joke building. And there's always a joke building, the joke that's rescued Chris from so many other scrapes we can imagine are just like the ones we see in Party Animal. But Stathis brings a flavor of desperation to Chris which is wonderful, if cringe-inducing to watch. His performance sells us on both who the character thinks he is and who he actually