If nothing else, Dominick Dunne: After The Party makes a compelling case that Dominick Dunne did, in fact, live a fairly interesting life, if not an especially revealing one. A fixture of the Hollywood party scene in the 50s and 60s, Dunne did not distinguish himself on the basis of his own talent until fairly late into his life, when he began writing novels, and subsequently covering high-profile criminal trials for Vanity Fair magazine. The arc of his transformation (and other tragic events in his life) all provide the raw material of great drama, but After The Party fails in the end to construct it into a well-formed story, tending instead to the strictly superficial elements of biography and revealing little about the inner life of the subject.
Framed against the proceedings of the Phil Spector murder trial, After The Party provides (through photographs and with modern day interviews with Dunne and his contemporaries, including Robert Evans) a narration of his life, from his early days as a stage manager in New York to his eventual move to Hollywood, where he was able to ingratiate himself into the upper echelons of power. It had almost nothing to do with his work in the industry (he produced the beloved/reviled 1970 gay cinema landmark The Boys In The Band) and almost everything to do with his ability to throw a great party. After falling out with that crowd (and virtually exiling himself in a small cabin in Oregon), Dunne became a rather prolific writer after nary having picked up a pen in his life. He first tried his hand at writing novels (achieving more commercial than critical success), but achieved his greatest notoriety by becoming perhaps the quintessential crime reporter of the late, celebrity-crime filled twentieth century. The Menendez Brothers? He was there. Michael Jackson? O.J. Simpson? Dunne covered them all, crafting a persona that was not unlike the Javert of Les Miserables; willfully dedicated to the destruction of his enemies for reasons more personal than professional. Granted, it’s not hard to see where this motivation would come from; Dunne’s daughter, Dominique(teenage star of Poltergeist), was murdered at the age of 22, only for her murderer to be set free after serving a mere 4 years time.
The original title of After The Party was Celebrity. If the film lived up to what it seems to promise, that would be the more appropriate title. Dunne’s involvement with celebrities, from his early beguilement with them to his later attempts to destroy them (made apparent in several monologues here), would seem to reveal something timely and relevant about the nature of celebrity itself, particularly with those who are ‘famous for being famous’ (a designation that could have once applied to Dunne himself). But the insight that would have come out with a more disciplined and focused director simply is not present here. Different interviews are edited together with little to no sense of cohesion; long, amusing, but ultimately inconsequential stories are dwelled upon for great lengths of time, and interviews with notable contemporaries come across as little more than cameos rather than meaningful interjections. Additionally, the framing device of Phil Spector’s trial proves to be a poor one, as Dunne’s coverage proved to have little to no effect on its outcome.
Dunne, however, comes across amicably, able to display both regret (when talking about the dissolution of his first marriage, primarily due to his party-going lifestyle), pride (in talking about he destroyed an unsavory lawyer’s career), and charm (the man does tell a mean celebrity anecdote) in equal measure. His screen magnetism is nearly enough to hold this film together, and for some people, it just might. Under any circumstances, it’s enough to make you wish that there were time enough to make another film about him (there isn’t; he died recently), because there’s no question but that there’s enough material there, and that, under the right circumstances, it could prove to be rather compelling.
DVD Bonus Features
The DVD comes with an additional disc that contains a great number of deleted scenes (and I do mean a whole lot of them) , an excerpt from the book Too Much Money, some exclusive home video of Dunne, (and his celebrity friends), some photos featured in the film, and the theatrical trailer. The film also has an audio commentary by Kirsty de Garis and Timothy Jolley, the film’s co-directors, which certainly reveals their respect for Dunne, which was clearly their motivation for making the film.
"Dominick Dunne: After The Party" is on sale January 26, 2010 and is rated NR. Documentary. Directed by Kirsty De Garis, Timothy Jolley. Starring Dominick Dunne, Joan Didion, Graydon Carter, Griffin Dunne.
