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 new film genre has emerged in the last two decades: the indie. At one time, independent films were merely those not financed by a Hollywood studio, usually low-budget exploitation fare. But during the 1980s, new revenue sources (foreign sales, cable, video) attracted new investors. As it became easier for films to earn back their costs without full theatrical distribution, indie films relied less on “surefire” exploitation content (sex and violence) and began telling smaller, personal stories. Early examples include Stranger Than Paradise (1984), She’s Gotta Have It (1986), Chan Is Missing (1982), and Metropolitan (1990). More recent instances include most anything on cable’s Independent Film Channel or Sundance Channel.
Indie films also grew up because, since Star Wars (1977), Hollywood has dominated the exploitation market: a low-budget sci-fi thriller couldn’t possibly compete against The Matrix (1999), the thinking goes. Thus, Hollywood and indies have to a great extent traded roles. Today, the studios produce $100 million “B-movies” while indie filmmakers are more likely to tell complex, adult stories. But just to hedge their bets and confuse terminology, the studios have opened “classics divisions” through which to produce “indie films.” Therefore, it is fair to say that the “indie film” is now also a genre, sometimes financed independently, sometimes by Hollywood.
But while the degree of independence enjoyed by indie filmmakers continues, as always, to vary widely, the emergence of the indie genre has allowed serious films—and actors—to flourish outside the Hollywood popcorn factory. A leading example is Parker Posey, who has performed in nearly forty (mostly indie) films over the past nine years. Her career illustrates both the greater artistic freedom in the indie film genre and the increasing ability of performers and filmmakers to cross between Hollywood and the indie world.
Despite her popularity with filmmakers and audiences, Posey is not an indie star. Stars play themselves. Posey is an actress. This is a distinction not of fame but of range. Stars overwhelm roles with their trademark personality and charisma, whereas actors disappear into roles. Val Kilmer, for example, is an actor, despite his star fame and charisma. An acting student will either mature into an actor or remain within a narrow type—whether as an extra, character actor, or star. But Hollywood typecasting narrows the options for even talented actors. Thus, despite her headlining roles in indie films, Posey’s Hollywood work has been largely limited to supporting “nasty girl” roles (the shallow girlfriend in You’ve Got Mail, the evil executive in Josie and the Pussycats). Yet despite Hollywood’s typecasting, Posey has portrayed such varied characters that it is difficult to identify a single Posey type; she has several, some overlapping, with new types evolving every few films.
Perhaps the most prevalent Posey persona is that of an insolent rebel whose jaded affectations hide some injury, insecurity, or vulnerability; whose callous cynicism masks a desire to be understood, accepted, and successful in conventional terms, both professionally and romantically. She stops sassing only when she feels safe. In Suburbia (1996), for example, her brazen A&R executive mellows when she finds a man who she thinks understands her.
In her key films, Posey’s rebellious irreverence covers the pain of being a loser. In Party Girl (1995), her first leading role, Posey portrays Mary, a twenty-four-year-old slacker desperate for career and romance, despairing of being worthy of either. Mary’s flighty exuberance at a dance club masks her low self-worth. Hiding her pain with feigned indifference, she enthusiastically proclaims to her godmother: “What do you expect, I’m a loser!” She rejects her lover’s respect because, she tells him, “You don’t know me.” Still, Party Girl is a comedy, and a light one at that. After hitting rock bottom at a rave, Mary pulls herself together, persuades her godmother to rehire her at the library, resolves to attend college, and accepts her lover’s respect. Plot points are all-too-quickly and unconvincingly resolved, but Party Girl remains enjoyable largely because of Posey’s portrayal of a young woman’s discovery of her abilities and self-worth.
Posey’s “loser oeuvre” darkened with the more mature and literate Clockwatchers (1997), an ensemble film with a stronger cast (including Toni Collette and Lisa Kudrow). Posey plays Margaret, the brash leader of a quartet of office temps. Although irreverently cynical about office politics, Margaret wants desperately to advance in her career, to “go permanent” after years of temping. Like Party Girl’s Mary, Margaret is hurt by the fact that relatives consider her a loser. But whereas Mary ultimately breaks down and cries, Margaret stays tough, despite her darker fate. Falsely suspected of office theft, unjustly fired, and betrayed by her friends, she goes down fighting, foolishly incriminating herself further with her reckless but endearing bravery.
Posey can play a character serenely (as in The Anniversary Party), but she’s usually physically demonstrative, facially expressive, energetic, and exuberant. In Party Girl, she break-dances and does cartwheels. In Clockwatchers, she uses her physicality not to express elation but to intrude into others’ spaces, demanding attention. She springs from behind a cubicle to loudly address Toni Collette; she rides her chair into a corridor, arms and legs akimbo; she strides toward a group of hushed temps in the office closet, loudly demanding answers. Margaret is loud and expansive throughout Clockwatchers, giving the impression of having grown up ignored and, feeling left out, having learned to demand attention. Like many Baby Boomers, Margaret’s parents subscribe to a yuppie ethos that values career success above all else. Doubtless demanding high grades and imposing after-school activities, their efforts paid off with Margaret’s successful sister, whereas Margaret’s demeanor conveys the emotional burden of failing to measure up. She eventually irritates everyone, yet her abrasiveness wins our sympathy. Although Posey has been admired for her catlike eyes and pout (her feline features are enhanced by a pronounced widow’s peak), she is not a conventional beauty. Short, small, thin (almost scrawny), many of her characters suggest having been ignored as children, demanding attention through exuberant, even reckless behavior. These are difficult women, yet charming for their audacious determination to claim what life seems to have reserved for others. In her Sundance interview, Posey interprets her Daytrippers character as “wanting to be noticed by her boyfriend” and flirting with infidelity to catch his attention. (Yet Jo makes a sincere effort not to be caught, so it’s noteworthy that Posey regards Jo’s motivation as a desire for attention.) Posey can demand attention partly because her petite frame carries a husky voice, enabling her to portray angry, even bullying women (Dazed and Confused, Mixed Nuts), without sounding squeaky or shrill.
House of Yes (1997) is Posey’s darkest film, a very black comedy about murder, suicide, and incest. Despite her wealth, Posey’s Jackie is another loser, spoiled into helplessness and insanity by always getting her way, raised in a “house of yes.” (Not until the final shot is it implied that she did not initiate the incestuous behavior she pursues so aggressively.) Posey matches the film’s extreme darkness by heightening her own traits, becoming louder and more animated than in previous films, more insecure, more hurt, and more fragile. Morose in past films, in House of Yes she is positively suicidal. Previously shouting, she now shrieks. Previously acerbic, she is now cruel (mocking another character’s poverty, for example).
Posey’s repertoire of rebels and losers includes many minor roles. As an actress rather than a star, Posey is unafraid to alternate between lead and supporting roles (reportedly, against her manager’s advice). Her only other leading role as a loser is Fay, in Hal Hartley’s Henry Fool (1997). Fay is one of Posey’s trashier rebel losers, yet beneath her impudent sluttiness, Fay too is hurting and yearning to improve, professionally and morally. Like Mary and Margaret, Fay is capable of meeting a challenge if called upon. Initially resentful of having to provide for her mother, Fay soon takes pride in her humble résumé and Fotomat job. She matures into a protective mother and, although a caustic wife, she proves devoted and reliable in bad times.
In her Hollywood films, Posey’s characters are less troubled and complex, and more successful, if not always happier. Uncomfortable with stories—or actors—that can’t be summarized in a few lines, Hollywood has summarized “the Posey character” according to a few nasty personality traits skimmed from her indie repertoire of angry young women. And because Hollywood heroines must be lovable, not nasty, Hollywood generally casts Posey in one-dimensional supporting roles, usually as a petty villainess. Posey played a flaky starlet in Scream 3, a catty recording executive in Josie and the Pussycats (who, nevertheless, hides a pained, if silly, vulnerability beneath her brash exterior), and a shallow girlfriend in You’ve Got Mail (whom Tom Hanks exchanges for Meg Ryan). In each of these films, another actress plays the lead heroine, and Posey ends up dead, jailed, or dumped. In You’ve Got Mail, Ryan and Posey are an effective Ms. Right and Ms. Wrong, respectively. It’s doubtful that Ryan can overcome her “star glow” to play a Margaret or Fay, but Posey has excelled in the sort of romantic comedy role Ryan usually plays, wholly opposite the darkly flawed characters of most of Posey’s indie and Hollywood work. Party Girl hinted at Posey’s romantic-comedy talents (as when Mary bashfully tries to impress her Lebanese beau by speaking from a translation book), and so too Waiting for Guffman (when Libby Mae sings “A Penny for Your Thoughts”). They were fully demonstrated in the clunky Misadventures of Margaret (1998) and the gently quirky Dinner at Fred’s (1999), a stealth Christmas classic.
In Dinner at Fred’s, Gil Bellows (ofAlly McBeal) plays a harried executive who, afraid to fly, sets out by automobile for his snotty fiancée’s mansion for Christmas. Waylaid by a snowstorm and taken in by a bizarre rural family (shades of Cold Comfort Farm), he falls in love with the couple’s daughter, Celia (Posey), who rekindles his childhood passion for magic tricks. Through her, he realizes that love, family, and the spirit of Christmas trump money and a beautiful but cold fiancée. It’s a surprisingly traditional tale and theme for a Posey film: unexpectedly meeting one’s true love, in the most unlikely of circumstances—at Christmas time, no less. Shamelessly sappy, shot in a winter wonderland, the film pushes all the right buttons to get viewers to break out the Kleenex. Yet its heart-tugging magic works despite its obvious audience manipulations. Celia is a complete turnaround for Posey: guileless, trusting, simple-hearted, open, generous, optimistic, with a childlike faith and an adorable glow equal to any of Ryan’s romantic leads. A traditional tale with an indie’s unconventional structure (the lead heroine isn’t introduced until a half hour into the film), Dinner at Fred’s shows the variety and maturity achievable in the indie genre.
The Misadventures of Margaret opens with Posey’s Margaret meeting and marrying a Brit in Paris. We then flash forward to their “seven year itch” and various unfunny hijinks that result from it. Living amid Manhattan’s Sex and the City culture, Margaret is a frustrated writer/translator who frets that she has missed something by marrying the first man she slept with. Unlike that of Celia, Margaret’s romanticism is tempered by jaded Manhattan sophistication; she and her husband even invite her potential French lover to dinner. Part bedroom farce, part comedy of manners, Misadventures is peppered with disjointed bits of just about everything, unevenly veering from zany antics to brooding observations to treacly sentimentality. Yet as the film wanders to a conclusion, Posey has moments where she is charmingly funny or endearingly heartwarming.
Despite their traditional romantic heroines, Misadventures of Margaret and Dinner at Fred’s are not Hollywood films. Misadventures is an American-English-French coproduction, andDinner at Fred’s is Canadian-American. Hollywood has yet to cast Posey as a romantic lead. Josie and the Pussycats was Posey’s stab at mainstream stardom, prompting a Mademoiselle cover and a few rare tabloid mentions as a “Josie star.” The movie, however, did poorly among both audiences and critics, crumbling under its largely drab cast (Posey and Alan Cumming excepted) and repetitive, one-joke script that quickly exhausted its stock of very obvious satirical targets. Hence, Posey remains a supporting player in her Hollywood work, her indie persona too complex and contradictory for her to be typecast as a conventional heroine.
But even if Hollywood and the tabloids relegate Posey to supporting roles, actors know that there are no small parts. And, increasingly, there are no small movies, as the expanding and maturing indie genre increases choices for both filmmakers and audiences.
Thomas M. Sipos is the author of the satirical novels Vampire Nation and Manhattan Sharks. For details, visit www.CommunistVampires.com.
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