Willem Dafoe in a Murky Household Melodrama
No man is an island, besides, maybe, a person who owns one. The alienating, even dehumanizing results of maximum wealth and privilege are delivered to bear in “The Birthday Occasion,” a grim little kinda-Greek tragedy that, regardless of a prolonged visitor checklist, could as effectively be a one-man present. The newest characteristic by Spanish writer-director Miguel Ángel Jiménez features mainly as an ode to the various menacing display screen moods of 1 Willem Dafoe, solid as a cold-blooded Nineteen Seventies delivery magnate plainly modeled on Aristotle Onassis, albeit with the form of darkish, gnarled glamor that the massive O himself might solely dream of. Brooding, glowering and typically even speak-singing his manner by means of proceedings, Dafoe is never lower than compelling; the identical can’t be stated, nonetheless, for the leaden movie round him.
Tailored from a well-regarded 2007 novel by Greek author Panos Karnezis, “The Birthday Occasion” could honor the Aegean milieu of the textual content, however there’s an overriding air of Europudding placelessness to this Greek-Spanish-Dutch-British co-production with an completed if underserved multinational solid. That considerably softens the precise satirical chunk of the supply materials, with Karnezis’ detailed mirroring of Onassis’ life story largely excised within the screenplay — together with reams of backstory feeding into the weekend-spanning timeline of the central narrative. What’s left feels each dramatically and emotionally sparse, regardless of escalatingly merciless actions and penalties. Dafoe’s presence and a distinctively baleful island atmosphere symbolize the chief promoting factors of this predominantly feel-bad train, premiering in Locarno’s Piazza Grande program.
A quick prologue introduces terse tycoon Marco Timoleon (Dafoe) at his lowest private ebb, responding with dour stoicism to the information that his teenage son — and favourite little one — has been killed in a seaplane crash. Heavy rain lashes into the water surrounding his personal island; minimize to a decade or so later, and the climate has improved however a reducing ambiance stays, signaled by the plunging shadows and pewtery end of Gris Jordana’s lensing. It’s late summer season, even when the temperature appears to drop in any room Timoleon enters, and the island is about to be extra populated than it’s been in lots of a 12 months. Timoleon’s daughter and sole surviving inheritor Sofia (Vic Carmen Sonne, Danish star of final 12 months’s “The Lady With the Needle”) is popping 25, and he’s marking the event with an extravagant social gathering.
Amongst these in attendance is principled physician Patrikios (Christos Stergioglou), a former shut ally of Timoleon’s. He’s shocked to be invited after years of estrangement, although he learns his providers are required for many unsavory causes. A extra apparent invitee is younger British author Forster (“Peaky Blinders” star Joe Cole), on condition that he’s each writing a biography of Timoleon and having a fling with Sofia, which seems to be an excellent stickier battle of pursuits than you may think. Additionally current is Olivia (Emma Suarez), Sofia’s stepmother and shortly to be Timoleon’s ex-wife, plus a number of pals, foes and in-between acquaintances who litter the story with out actually advancing it.
Mainly, it is a research of a father-daughter relationship soured by grief and parental partiality: Timoleon can not conceal his choice for the kid he misplaced, to the purpose that Sofia wonders aloud if he needs her useless as an alternative. That doesn’t cease him, nonetheless, from wielding stifling management over her grownup life, when a serious secret she has been harboring involves mild. Sonne matches Dafoe’s depth with a clenched, internally ruined air, although it’s a bit of arduous to determine in her the feckless social gathering lady that others communicate of. But the facility in these two performances isn’t supplemented by a lot texture within the stern, declamatory writing: There’s little sense of how this relationship features, or as soon as functioned, exterior these notably fraught scenes.
What grip the movie exerts is essentially right down to its clammy sensory qualities: the salty humidity felt in Jordana’s compositions, the ostentatious proportions and forbidding dimness of Myrte Beltman’s manufacturing, the sweaty sallowness of 1 face after one other. Alexandros Livitsanos and Prins Obi’s rating is suitably, disconcertaingly stark and atonal, setting the tone for the movie’s most peculiar sonic coup: Dafoe’s muttered, distinctly unmusical recitation of the outdated Nina Simone customary “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood.” “I’m only a soul whose intentions are good,” he intones, his supply casting doubt on each phrase in that lyric — starting with the “soul” half.