"Piper, nooo! Tsunami! Buddhism!" We've been listening to Parker Posey's gloriously insane Carolina accent warp words to hilarious effect every Sunday on "The White Lotus" season 3, where the actress plays Victoria Ratliff, a wealthy Southern matriarch who must know where her lorazepam is at all times.
The hit HBO anthology series is a great showcase for the quirky character work that Posey has consistently been doing for decades as a veritable indie queen, working with the auteur likes of Richard Linklater ("Dazed and Confused"), Noah Baumbach ("Kicking and Screaming") and Christopher Guest ("Waiting for Guffman," which you can now joyfully watch on YouTube for free), among many others.
But one singular Parkey Posey role stands out for me among the offbeat bunch, and that's the 1995 cult classic "Party Girl." And just in time for curious viewers to fall even more deeply in love with all things Parker Posey, the Daisy von Scherler Mayer-directed fan favorite is available to stream on Hulu.
Here's why you should add Parkey Posey's "Party Girl" to your watchlist, stat.
What is 'Party Girl' about?
Posey stars as Mary, a financially broke and free-spirited twentysomething who bops around New York City filling her days with trips to the nightclubs and various house parties.
After she's arrested for throwing an illegal rave, she asks her godmother Judy (Sasha von Scherler, the director’s mom) for bail money. To ensure that Mary pays her back, Judy finds the downtown bon vivant a clerk job at the branch of the New York Public Library that Judy manages.
At first, Mary finds the desk gig way less exciting than the Deee-Lite-soundtracked fêtes she's used to frequenting, but soon she's charmed by the Dewey Decimal System as well as Mufasa (Omar Townsend), a Lebanese street-food vendor with whom she sparks up a romance. Will Mary stay on the straight-and-narrow and bring some grown-up responsibility in her new life as a librarian, or will her hard-partying ways rear their ugly head?
Why should you watch 'Party Girl' on Hulu?
Along with being an immersive '90s time capsule — Mary's incredible designer wardrobe and the nostalgic nightclub soundtrack alone make the fun flick worth a watch — "Party Girl" is jam-packed with screwball humor, kinetic energy and colorful characters (the ensemble includes Guillermo Díaz, Anthony DeSando, Donna Mitchell, drag-queen legend Lady Bunny and an early-career Liev Schreiber), all anchored by a lovable, movie star-making turn by Parker Posey.
But even without all of that mid-nineties milieu, club-kid chaos and too-cool trendiness, "Party Girl" endures because there's a lot of heart beating beneath those DJ-spun beats.
Posey's Mary might be the most exciting girl at the party but she's still simply a young woman who's a little lost, who has to navigate those tricky quarter-life challenges like how you're going to make rent on time and how to make a serious connection with someone you might be interested in.
It's all low stakes, but highly relatable, and it gives the dramedy just the dose of sincerity it needs to balance out all of that style.
Watch "Party Girl" on Hulu now
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