Birthday Smash
2021 · 10m · USA
Directed by Jasmine De Silva
Genres: comedy, dark comedy
Tones: absurdist, darkly comic, humorous
Three women approach their 50th birthday with giddy anticipation, then sour fast as the unwrapped gifts from family and friends reveal everyone's true feelings about them. A pastel-coated panic attack about middle age.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Birthday cards as weapons of psychological warfare — finally someone gets it. The premise is a Trojan horse and I'm here for whatever's inside.
Pastel birthday aesthetics weaponized to expose petty cruelty — De Silva's middle-age panic attack works in the Miranda July sketch-swerve register, with Arnow's social-cringe choreography in the room. Funnier than it sounds.
Birthday-party aesthetics weaponized to expose petty cruelties hiding in well-meaning gestures — three women's giddy anticipation souring as the gifts come out. The pastel-coated panic-attack frame is sharp.