Producer: Giorgos Karnavas Director: Miguel Ángel Jiménez Screenplay: Miguel Ángel Jiménez, Giorgos Karnavas and Nicos Panagiotopoulos Cast: Willem Dafoe, Vic Carmen Sonne, Joe Cole, Emma Suarez, Christos Stergioglou, Antonis Tsiotsiopoulos, Fransesc Garrido, Maria Pau Pigem, Elsa Lekkakou and Pelle Heikkilä Distributor: Quiver Distribution
Grade: C-
It’s almost worth watching Miguel Ángel Jiménez’s stolid adaptation of Panos Karnezis’s 2007 novel to hear Willem Dafoe render Nina Simone’s (and The Animals’) “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” in a sort of gloomy Sprechgesang over the closing credit crawl. Just kidding: it isn’t.
Dafoe plays Marcos Timoleon, a Greek tycoon living in the 1970s on his private Aegean island. Having lost his son and heir in a plane crash, he’s throwing an elaborate twenty-fifth birthday party for his only surviving child, his daughter Sofia (Vic Carmen Sonne). She’s been living the high life for some time in Europe, and has recently taken up with Ian Forster (Joe Cole), a British writer who’s also at work on a biography of Marcos.
The film doesn’t tells us much about the mogul’s past (the novel was far more expansive on that score) beyond the few remarks he makes about his hardscrabble youth while doing an impromptu Greek dance for the crowd—a remarkably energetic show by Dafoe that’s interrupted when a scuffle breaks out with a paparazzo who’s snuck into the gathering and is trying to photograph the host surreptitiously, something Timoleon won’t abide. The offender is quickly subdued and removed by Marcos’ trusty butler Kostas (Antonis Tsiotsiopoulos), who was shown in a prologue informing his employer of his son’s untimely death.
We’re given a few hints about the Timoleon’s business interests as he mingles with the guests. At one point, for example, an old Spanish marquis (Francesc Garrido) who’s partnered with him in the past tries to interest him in some obscure project involving the Sahara. He also spends a bit of time with the old man’s son Carlos (Carlos Cuevas) whom he considers a potential partner for Sofia. But his most extended conversations are with his current wife Olivia (Emma Suárez), with whom he shares his concerns about his daughter even though Olivia is only her stepmother (and Timoleon intends to divorce her anyway), and Patrikios (Christos Stergiogiou), a doctor who’s been estranged from him for some time and is surprised to have been invited at all.
But the doctor’s presence, as it turns out, is crucial to Timoleon’s plans, because his main purpose in holding the party at all is to sabotage Sofia’s relationship with Forster, a matter made urgent by something he has learned about how far their affair has progressed. To settle the matter to his satisfaction Timoleon is resolved to go to any lengths, including asking Patrikios to do something unspeakable. It’s a request that the doctor considers beyond the pale. And it’s complicated by the fact that Sofia has an agenda of her own.
Shot in Corfu and Athens, “The Birthday Party” has a kind of hothouse look, with Myrte Bettman’s production design oppressive and Gris Jordana’s cinematography giving the visuals a quasi-greasy overlay. The score by Alexandros Livitsanos and Prins Obi adds a further layer of decadence to the proceedings, while Nacho Ruiz Capillas’ editing accentuates the almost serpentine vibe to the unsettling narrative.
Ultimately, though, the film is basically a one-man show, and Dafoe is willing to go to virtually any lengths—including nudity—to make it work. Nothing is enough, however, because the seediness bubbling under the opulence never becomes convincing, and the pacing by Jiménez and Capillas is more ponderous than seductive. Moreover, the other performances—especially those of Sonne, who’s never persuasive as a hedonist, and Cole, who’s simply a dull stick—engender much interest.
This is one party you should definitely RSVP to—in the negative, though it’s aways perversely amusing to watch Dafoe overindulge, and in this case to hear him “sing.”