And yet it keeps you riveted. "The Anniversary Party," written and directed by two actors, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Alan Cumming, who also star, is a sterling example of the right way to go about a vanity project. Leigh and Cumming wrote the movie for their friends to star in; it was shot in 19 days using digital video cameras. Yet save for the flaws already mentioned, "The Anniversary Party" rarely feels self-conscious or draggy.

Cumming is the versatile character actor who most recently starred in "Spy Kids" and "Josie and the Pussycats"; he also played the mincing desk clerk in "Eyes Wide Shut." Leigh, an earthy and often mesmerizing actress, has starred in a wide range of independent and commercial features alike, from "Last Exit to Brooklyn" to "Dolores Claiborne," since she made her first big splash in Cameron Crowe's 1982 "Fast Times at Ridgemont High." She also recently appeared in the Dogma picture "The King Is Alive"; working on that movie opened her up to the potential of digital video.

"The Anniversary Party" was clearly conceived to be an actor's movie, an opportunity for Leigh and Cumming's circle of friends to stretch out, dig in and show what they can do, and every performer rises to the occasion. The picture has the relaxed feel of an actors' exercise, but one that's interesting every moment. There are slack patches in the writing here and there, but the players whisk you through them so artfully that you barely notice them. It's rare to see an ensemble so consistently on the money: Even when they aren't doing much, they're a joy to watch.

Cumming plays a British novelist with a few hits under his belt; he's about to take a shot at directing his first movie. Leigh is his wife, a high-strung but respected film actress. The couple have just reconciled after a yearlong separation, and they've decided to celebrate their sixth anniversary with a party at their glamorously austere Los Angeles home; they're also trying to conceive a child.

That simple premise sets the stage for the latent conflicts between Cumming and Leigh to rush to the surface. It also allows for the gradual unfurling of the multitentacled relationships each of them has with the guests at the party -- many of them other couples. One couple, Parker Posey and John Benjamin Hickey, are the pair's tense business managers, overtly anxious about Cumming and Leigh's shaky finances and subconsciously anxious about their own wobbly marriage.

	The Anniversary Party Written and directed by Jennifer Jason Leigh and Alan Cumming Starring Jennifer Jason Leigh, Alan Cumming, Kevin Kline, Phoebe Cates, Gwyneth Paltrow, Parker Posey Print story E-mail story

John C. Reilly is a successful, respected film director -- Leigh is starring in his latest movie and, it appears, simply phoning in the performance, much to his frustration. Reilly's wife, Jane Adams, is a nervous, birdlike actress who has just given birth to the couple's first child and is trying to keep her career going nonetheless. Kevin Kline and Phoebe Cates play married actors who are also busy raising a family; Kline is still working (starring opposite Leigh in Reilly's film), but Cates, who is Leigh's best friend, has retired from acting to raise the couple's two children.

The other party guests include Gwyneth Paltrow, a big star who has agreed to star in Cumming's movie, which is a grand coup for him; Denis O'Hare and Mina Badie as the couple's meddling, lawsuit-happy neighbors; Jennifer Beals as an old friend of Cumming's of whom Leigh is bitterly jealous; and Michael Panes as one of the couple's random pals, a gifted violinist and self-acknowledged Peter Sellers look-alike. (He plays up the resemblance with squared-off, horn-rimmed glasses.)

If there were a special camera that could pick up the auras of fragile egos and rampant worries, the air in "The Anniversary Party" would be ablaze with chrysanthemums of light. As it is, the movie fairly vibrates with anxiety, but the actors catch the audience up in it instead of leaving us on the outside looking in. I can't recall the last time a picture left me feeling so caffeinated.

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