The Birthday Party
Willem Dafoe plays a wealthy businessman who hosts an extravagant birthday party for his daughter on a private island. The celebration attracts a colourful group of business associates with old scores to settle.
The Birthday Party – much like series such as Succession and The White Lotus – exposes the absurdity of the bubble of extreme luxury and boundless privilege in which the ultra-wealthy live. Greek plutocrat Marcos Timoleon (clearly inspired by billionaire Aristotle Onassis) throws a lavish party in honour of his daughter Sofia’s twenty-fifth birthday.
However, the festivities are overshadowed by the death of Marcos’s son in a plane crash. Now that his favourite child is gone, Marcos shifts his attention to his daughter (and sole heir) and begins to meddle in her love life. Irritated, he watches as she embarks on an affair with a young British writer working on Marcos’s biography. As the night unfolds and tensions rise, a plan emerges behind the scenes that will irrevocably alter Sofia’s future.
Written by M.V.