200 Cigarettes: Hardy Party

Rated R

On New Year’s Eve 1981, everyone wants a mate. For former casting director Risa Bramon Garcia, this sounds like a great excuse to throw a party for moviegoers and give a new class of actors the chance to show their stuff.

Set in New York’s East Village, 200 Cigarettes opens with one couple — Paul Rudd and Courtney Love — making their way by cab to a party given by Martha Plimpton. The gratingly inconsolable Rudd divides his angst equally between his recent break-up with Janeane Garofalo and the fact that his birthday falls on New Year’s Eve. The cab (license plate, Luv2LuvU) drops off Rudd and Love at a trendy bar where Love hits on overwhelmingly inept and gloriously smug bartender Ben Affleck.

This cab, driven by David Chappelle, also chauffeurs most of the movie’s characters, including fish-out-of-water teens Christina Ricci and Gaby Hoffmann. The viewer almost needs subtitles to wade through their Long Island accents. Along the way to Plimpton’s party, the teens hook up with would-be-punker-with-a-heart-of-gold Casey Affleck.

Meanwhile, the guest list keeps growing: newly deflowered Kate Hudson (Goldie Hawn’s daughter and almost as lovable), lady killer Jay Mohr, Scotsman Brian McCardie (who gives new meaning to the term “clueless”), and party girls Nicole Parker and Angela Featherstone.

In a movie full of good performances, Chappelle, Plimpton, Garofalo, and Hudson prove especially fun to watch. Party hosts and hostesses everywhere will sympathize with Plimpton, and the rest of us can rejoice at her return to the screen.

A message might be lurking behind the drugs, sex, alcohol and cigarettes, but it’s pretty hard to hear over the roar of the music and probably doesn’t matter anyway. A good party doesn’t need a message; it rocks on its own power.

Joan Fuchsman