Willem Dafoe brings star wattage to this watchable drama, playing brooding Greek plutocrat and alpha-patriarch Marcos Timoleon, transparently based on Aristotle Onassis: gazing impassively at people through his heavy glasses, doting menacingly on his dependents and given to exercising in the nude in front of the servants. Spanish film-maker Miguel Ángel Jiménez directs and co-writes this adaptation of the novel by Panos Karnezis.
Bringing star power also is charismatic Danish star Vic Carmen Sonne; she plays his daughter Sofia, who has the honour and the terrible burden of a massive 25th birthday party thrown for her by the overbearing Marcos on his private island. The guest list consists almost entirely of his heavily tanned Eurotrash acquaintances and hangers-on, but this claustrophobic party is all the more painful as (like Onassis) Timoleon has recently suffered the terrible anguish of his son and favourite child dying in a plane accident.
The film shows us that he concerns himself now with who Sofia is to marry and who his son-in-law is therefore to be – questions that, if his son had lived, would not be nearly so important – and he is nettled to see a close relationship between Sofia and his young English biographer Ian Forster, played by Joe Cole. In his heart, of course, Marcos would have preferred the other child to die and he has terrible plans for Sofia at the end of her party.
This is a strong, confident picture that hits its measured stride early on. Its pace and style and language are dictated by a charismatic Dafoe; however, he gives the impression that this performance is not exactly a stretch for him. But he is always commanding, especially when talking to his various consiglieri, confiding amusingly to one intimate that it is good that children become rebellious and disagreeable; if they stayed as adorable as when they were young, parents could never part with them.
The Birthday Party screened at the Locarno film festival.