A certain kind of love exists in the glass onion of fame, a love different from that staid, run-of-the-mill, Meg Ryan-romantic-comedy kind of love everyone else dreams about.

Hollywood provides distinct boundaries for this kind of love, and the National Enquirer provides a peephole for the relationships that bloom so far away. Few movies dare to tackle the subject, fearing an in-joke backlash. But actors Alan Cumming and Jennifer Jason Leigh took the jump with “The Anniversary Party,” a flawed but interesting glimpse into the interpersonal relationships of the terribly attractive and woefully artistic.

Cumming and Leigh wrote, directed and star in the ensemble drama, with a story built on one of those days and one of those parties that can encapsulate dozens of ideas in a two-hour timespan. Subplots featuring such actors as Gwyneth Paltrow, John C. Reilly, Kevin Kline, Phoebe Cates and Parker Posey breeze through the intricately decorated rooms that hold plenty of fodder for a silly little anniversary party.

To Joe and Sally (Cumming and Leigh), the party means more than cake and party favors. It’s their sixth wedding anniversary, and the first celebration since Joe left for a separation filled with loathing, binge drug use and finding himself by having random sex. The relationship still stands on shaky ground, though.

The co-stars arrive full of quirks and tangled relations, and provide each actor a springboard for various “actor’s kind of characters.” You know, the woman who’s a pretzel of limbs and logic, to say nothing of her emotions (Jane Adams as Clair) or Reilly as Clair’s doting but slowly unraveling husband Mac.

And for the first half of the movie, the audience can accept this gratuitous acting and characterization because … well, these are tremendous actors.

And Paltrow’s Skye Davidson, the temptress and actress hired on to star in Joe’s directorial debut, brings out the most vicious kind of contempt in Sally. That’s a credit to Paltrow, who plays it with a slightly darker slant than Heather Graham did in “Bowfinger” – the high society cloud-floater with a dab of artistic knowledge.

Drugs relate to the film’s downfall as it trips when all the characters trip … literally. As the party shifts gears, all of the major characters take some ecstacy and the final hour details all of the revelations from that drug-induced haze.

Can we really trust these actions, these emotions, knowing what chemicals course through their veins? Do these mini-resolutions even matter in the grand scheme of things, and does that detract from this party’s supposed significance?

And in a narrative way, the drugs provide an easy escape into wacky acting hijinks that aren’t necessarily reeled in by Cumming and Leigh. We’re left with some decent performances and some memorable instances, but nothing that makes these fame-tinged relationships. Maybe that’s the point: All Hollywood romances have a certain level of detachment. But the optimist in us all would rail against this fatalist approach.

The DVD does provide for an increased appreciation for some hidden aspects of the film. A Cumming and Leigh commentary track as well as a featurette called “Anatomy of a Scene” detail a subtle and effective portion of the film in which each character gives an improvised speech to the couple. And the director of photography talks about the use of digital video to film the entire movie.

The entire film! This big step is lost in the fact that the film looks so very regular on the DVD format. In this respect, “The Anniversary Party” shows the ease of use for digital video technology. If only its take on Hollywood love could be so clear and fresh.