Karl Puschmann: After the Party, who will you believe?

Robyn Malcolm in After the Party.

The world is built on truth and lies and so much of how your life turns out depends on which lies you believe and whose truths you dismiss. After the Party, TVNZ’s entirely gripping new drama, presents a lie and a truth and leaves you to decide who you believe.

The stakes couldn’t be higher. On one side there’s Penny, a teacher and staunch environmentalist, and on the other is Phil, a fellow teacher and her ex-husband. Penny’s accusation is sexual abuse of a drunken teenager. Phil’s rebuttal is he was merely comforting the near paralytic lad.

It’s he said, she said. Who, the show asks, is telling the truth? That should be simple. #believewomen, right? The series itself answers this question when Sarah, a teacher at Penny’s school, rolls her eyes when the accusation gets brought up in the staff room.

“I’m just saying a lot of women make false accusations that completely destroy innocent men’s lives,” she says. “Just because you’re a woman doesn’t mean you’re automatically telling the truth.”

Penny, who is still reeling from Phil’s sudden reappearance in her life five years on from the incident, storms off, muttering “says the resident misogynist” under her breath as she does.

Offended and incredulous, Sarah asks the other staff members, “How can I be a misogynist? I’m a woman.”

Further muddying the waters is that After the Party shows you the incident via flashbacks. It’s Phil’s birthday and there’s a boozy party raging at their house. Their friends are there as are some mates of their teenage daughter Grace. Tunes are pumping, shots are being downed and the space in the lounge between the telly and the couch has become a dancefloor. Everyone’s having a good time except Grace’s mate Ollie who has too much vodka and is violently sick in the shower. He’s sent to bed to sleep it off.

When Penny notices she hasn’t seen Phil in a while she starts to look for him. She searches various rooms in the house until she eventually finds him lying in bed gazing deep into the eyes of a naked Ollie. Naturally, a scene erupts.

The series was created by actor Robyn Malcolm, who stars as Penny, and screenwriter Diane Taylor.

This, you’d think, is case closed for the show’s central mystery. After all, you see Phil in bed with the boy. But this all happens in episode one of the six-part series. Case very much still open.

In the present day, Phil is a calm, respected and likeable chap. So much so that when Penny’s claim tore the family apart Grace sided with Phil. Penny, however, is a bit of a wild card. She’s somewhat erratic and impulsive and has a strong sense of justice that sees her taking the law into her own hands when she feels it failed her. But is she a liar?

She certainly believes what she saw. Present-day Penny is haunted by the night that broke her family and is destroying her relationship with her daughter. But what, exactly, did she see? Ollie and Phil lying on the bed. Phil, who was fully clothed, certainly didn’t act like he’d been caught out when she entered the room. Instead he simply “ssh’d” her in an attempt to not wake Ollie.

The day after the party the couple have a vicious argument.

“If you really believe that comforting a drunken, disorientated teenager is child abuse then there’s something f***ing wrong with you,” he snarls.

“That wasn’t comfort,” she replies. “I didn’t see comfort.”

Maybe he is telling the truth. Perhaps she is. Could they both be? I don’t know. In the early episodes, the series doesn’t offer any easy answers. Instead, it’s meticulously planting evidence for both sides.

The series was created by actor Robyn Malcolm, who stars as Penny, and screenwriter Diane Taylor. The pair joined forces after getting frustrated by the lack of decent roles for middle-aged women so wrote their own. They hit it out of the park.

Malcolm, whose career is filled with career-defining roles, gives a career-best performance as Penny. It’s an extraordinary performance in a role that demands myriad emotions from burning rage to self-doubt to loss and even the occasional burst of environmental vigilantism. Scottish actor Peter Mullan (Ozark, Top of the Lake) is perfectly paired against her as the (mostly) convivial Phil. The subtleties and layers both actors bring to their parts are masterful.

After the Party leaves your head spinning like you’ve had one drink too many and is as dark and relentless as a fierce hangover. Its truths and lies are both coated in ambiguity and it foists the uncomfortable question of belief directly onto you.

There are no easy truths to be found in After the Party but you better believe it’s one of the year’s best shows.

* After the Party screens on TVNZ 1 and TVNZ+ from Sunday. New episodes weekly.