Adapted from his stage play, Australian writer-director James Harkness’ languid, low-key drama focuses on lost, lonely souls who are looking for love and intimacy in an unlikely place: a brothel.
Introducing a fallen priest as one of the knock shop’s clients also enables the filmmaker (billed here as J. Harkness) to indulge in a lengthy debate about God, the devil and forgiveness.
Although the events unfold over one night, the narrative lacks drive and spark and some characters aren’t well-developed so the reasons for their behaviour and motivations remain murky.
Reflecting its stage origins, Birthday is a very talky piece, conversations often drifting and meandering without reaching a punchline or resolution.
Given the setting, the sex scenes are disappointingly brief, mechanical and un-erotic.
Shot in Adelaide, Harkness’ home town, in 2008, the film is finally getting a staggered theatrical release around Australia after playing at numerous international and local festivals.
Lead actress Natalie Eleftheriadis won the Best Actor award at the Cannes Independent Film Festival for low budget movies in 2010.
Reprising her role from the play, Eleftheriadis plays a sex worker named M (short for Emma) who charges $300 per hour in an upmarket brothel run by the cruel, forbidding Scarlet (Chantal Contouri).
Little is revealed about M’s past: flashbacks show she was expelled from a Catholic school for writing a 'dirty" poem, she ran away from home and there’s an oblique reference to her having had a child.
M serves as a kind of mentor to co-worker Lily (Kestie Morassi, in familiar territory after playing a madam in Showtime’s series Satisfaction), teaching her the prosties’ self-imposed rules such as never kissing a john on the lips.
M laments she hasn’t kissed anyone since she was a teenager and pashed a 16-year-old boy and she yearns to feel love. She aspires to be a writer but judging by the pretentious poem she reads aloud to Lily that avenue doesn’t sound promising.
Their colleague Cindy (Ra Chapman) is a messed-up junkie who brings her baby to work despite Scarlet’s disapproval.
Travis McMahon is Father Philip, a regular client of M’s with whom he has theological discussions in which he describes God as a bully who doesn’t love anyone. Who knew a brothel could be a place for spiritual philosophising?
Richard Wilson is Joey, a shy, nervy, introverted 24-year-old virgin whose mother killed herself after a heartless bank repossessed their house and video store. He’s unemployed, his master's degree in 19th Century poetry evidently not providing a career path – not even teaching?
There are no major dramatic flashpoints, just a series of small-scale incidents as when Scarlet fires Cindy after she vomits on a john’s chest and M angrily confronts Scarlet.
Via too-neat contrivances, Joey meets Father Philip and later that night encounters Cindy and then M with a predictable conclusion. On that day both Joey and M are celebrating their birthdays but there’s not a lot to celebrate.
Researching the script, Harkness visited brothels and interviewed sex workers so some of the characters and events depicted may be more authentic than they seemed to this viewer.
In her first lead role Eleftheriadis is effective as the strong-willed but unfulfilled M.
McMahon, who starred in Harkness’ previous film Shot of Love, is okay as the conflicted priest, albeit a stereotype we’ve seen countless times. Wilson is the most affecting and believable as the lovelorn Joey.
Denson Baker’s cinematography and Ollie Olsen’s score are serviceable without being particularly noticeable.
