Three birthdays add up to one bad movie
Three Birthdays, an indie that played a few small film festivals in 2023 and 2024 is now available to stream, and that it didn’t get wider distribution is no surprise. Director Jane Weinstock and writer Nevin Schreiner seem to have taken their inspiration from The Ice Storm, Ang Lee’s 1997 award-winning tale of 1970s suburban ennui. But Three Birthdays is no Ice Storm, and its cringey premise and sophomoric script certainly don’t merit a recommendation.
Set in late spring 1970, the picture follows a progressive, academic Ohio family of three who all have birthdays within a few days of each other. Daughter Bobbie (Nuala Cleary) turns 17 first, using the occasion to lose her virginity to her boyfriend Adam (Uly Schlesinger). And Dad Rob (Josh Radnor) and mom Kate (Annie Parisse), both professors at the local unnamed college, each struggle with personal and professional turmoil as their birthdays come around.
Kate and Rob pride themselves on their open, free-wheeling approach to monogamy and sex, but their embrace of the sexual revolution proves complicated, both for them and their daughter. The picture is sprinkled with phrases like “monogamy is a retrograde institution” and “the patriarchy is punishing us for claiming our power.” The whole film feels as if it was written by someone who read a Wikipedia entry on the social mores of the early 1970s. The screenplay is less a cogent narrative and more a vehicle for the filmmakers to drop buzzwords like “liberation”, “consciousness”, “bourgeoisie”, “class struggle” and “far out” every few minutes. One character even has a “Power to the People” poster prominently displayed on her wall–and conspicuously in the camera’s sightline.
But perhaps the 1970-set film’s most egregious fault is that Kate’s birthday just happens to be May 4th. As any student of 20th century American history can tell you, the Kent State massacre took place that day. In a completely tone deaf move, the film has Bobbie, who, conveniently for the plot lives driving distance from Kate State, not only attend that fateful rally, but also get wounded in the shooting. Bobbie is an entirely fictional character, and, in reality, four people died that day, and nine were wounded. To add a made-up tenth victim to that tally feels gratuitous, disrespectful, and outright offensive to those who actually lost or nearly lost their lives.
The other problem is that with the exception of Radnor, the acting feels amateur and affected, although the inane dialog certainly doesn’t lend itself to Shakespearan levels of dramatic achievement. Cleary in particular overacts in almost every scene, as if she’s been cast in a 1970s After School Special. Radnor, whose work here is reminiscent of what he did in 2012’s underrated Liberal Arts, fares a little better, as his angst and dismay are conveyed more authentically than his scene partners, who seem to just be reciting memorized lines. And the story itself is filled with so many implausible plot points and eye-rolling coincidences that even if you ignore the incessant 1970s lingo, you’ll still be shaking your head wondering how this dopey project got greenlit. The ludicrous, abrupt ending can’t come soon enough.
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Three Birthdays is now streaming on AppleTV and Amazon Prime.
