Sally Potter’s (Orlando) deliciously nasty new film, described by Variety as a “caviar-black comedy,” takes place at the elegant London abode of Janet (Kristen Scott Thomas), who’s just been elected Minister of Health. A gaggle of her friends drop by for the champagne-popping celebration, but what is meant to be a night of triumph tumbles quickly into catastrophe when Janet’s strangely spaced-out husband (Timothy Spall) bursts the bubble with a bombshell announcement. And there will be many more unwanted revelations before this party ends.

Potter’s brisk, savagely witty screenplay gleefully skewers the pretensions of her upscale characters. She’s aided and abetted by a dream cast: Patricia Clarkson as Janet’s corrosively cynical best friend, who treats her New Age-y boyfriend (Bruno Ganz) with withering contempt; Cherry Jones and Emily Mortimer as a doctrinaire feminist academic and her pregnant wife; and a wild-eyed Cillian Murphy, who shows up in a coke-snorting lather and happens to be packing a gun.

Winner: Guild Film Prize, Berlin