The Birthday Party, 2026.
Directed by Miguel Ángel Jiménez.
Starring Willem Dafoe, Emma Suárez, Joe Cole, Vic Carmen Sonne, Christos Stergioglou, Carlos Cuevas, Antonis Tsiotsiopoulos, Francesc Garrido, María Pau Pigem, Pelle Heikkilä, Elsa Lekkakou, Nikolas Drosopoulos, Handrinou Ileana, Ilan Kaplan, and Ermina Kyriazi.
SYNOPSIS:
Markos Timoleon, a wealthy Greek businessman, hosts his daughter’s 25th birthday party on his private island. Unforeseen events unfold, jeopardizing his power and challenging his life’s foundations.
While the prospect of being invited to a party hosted by Willem Dafoe on his character’s private Greek island in the 1970s sounds too enticing to pass up, the affair is rather dull, save for the star’s ability to convey depth in a Greek tragedy-like performance. Co-writer/director Miguel Ángel Jiménez’s (collaborating with Giorgos Karnavas and Nikos Panayotopoulos, adapting the book by Panos Karnezis) The Birthday Party also uses the reliable veteran actor in some unexpected ways to make these layers and internal conflicts more pronounced, such as an occasional round of karaoke, where the inflections of that vocal turn color in some shades. Essentially, the film is somehow more tragically moving when Willem Dafoe is singing than when what’s actually happening. If someone walked in on the final scene/ending credits, they would, with reason, assume that the prior 90 minutes are a dramatically engaging powerhouse that needs to be seen immediately.
Marcos Timoleon (Willem Dafoe) is a wealthy Greek entrepreneur of some type (there are brief uninteresting conversations about trade routes and expansions) currently estranged from his 25-year-old daughter Sofia (Vic Carmen Sonne) following her departure to college, which also came after the family was thrown into disarray when her older brother died in an accident while she was a child. Sofia is visiting the island alongside her boyfriend Forster (Joe Cole), a biographer who is also writing a book about Marcos. She is also pregnant, assuming that her father doesn’t know, except he has investigative eyes everywhere and the information he needs. It’s a romance he is strongly opposed to for reasons tied to the family’s legacy and power, but Sofia believes her father is softening in his old age.
That couldn’t be further from reality, as Marcos has also reunited with other longtime enablers of his dirty work to horrifically deal with the situation. It’s the kind of plan that one would presume lends some demented thrust to the story, but for far too long, this party is stagnant and almost lifeless, as the other wealthy elites in attendance sit there only skating by on the strength of its veteran star. One supposes the sights of the island itself are quite striking, as is the lavish home Marcos resides in, which also contains a humongous outdoor swimming pool for the guests to solve themselves in on a sweltering summer day.
The Birthday Party is a one-act film, in that so little happens throughout that once the ending comes, it feels as if the story is finally kicking into a subsequent gear. Naturally, some screen time is given to the various guests, some of whom are also part of this dysfunctional family, but nothing about them stands out or provides additional insight. It’s also a stretch to say the film comes alive in the exchanges between Marcos and Sofia, as Vic Carmen Sonne simply doesn’t feel right in the role. Then again, she also doesn’t have much character to work with other than Marcos accusing her of getting into a drug-addled crowd and wanting nothing to do with this family. By the end, there isn’t anything illuminated beyond the obvious that her father wishes that she were the child who died. A full picture of the family never comes into focus, let alone everything fully formed about father and daughter.
What’s left is, as mentioned, a truly heinous scheme concocted by Marcos that goes into something far darker than trying to bribe Forster out of Sofia’s life. Ironically, the film finally becomes interesting when the party’s over (yes, that’s a Billie Eilish reference). The rest of The Birthday Party languishes through its setting that should surely have more energy than this, only made tolerable by Willem Dafoe searching for the depth and occasionally succeeding in spite of the film. Even then, this is a party not worth showing up to.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Robert Kojder
