The Birthday Trip (MA) – 99 minutes

A frustrating script that is badly developed, featuring forced acting and loose direction.

That in a nutshell is the new Australian movie The Birthday Trip.

It is pretentious, heavy handed and, in large measure, boring.

No wonder it is hard to get patrons to spend good money to see Aussie films.

Three couples drive to an upmarket weekend farm stay in the Southern Highlands to celebrate the girls’ 30^th birthdays.

The getaway has been organised by artist Clare Lapsley-Smith (Nicola Frew).

The three women went to school together, although their plus ones don’t know each other.

Clare’s partner, Jim Conrad (David Quirk), whom she is constantly taking pot shots at, creates advertising jingles. They have been together for five years.

Intelligent documentary film maker Angie Olsson (Josephine Starte) is with blokey Lars Adam Jansen (Luke Jacobz), who likes the sound of his own voice.

He works in securities and foreign exchange, and this unlikely couple has been dating for nearly seven years and engaged for three.

Then there is blonde socialite Isabel McDonald (Annelise Hall), who has landed a job as an ABC development coordinator.

Her arrogant partner Mark McDonald (Ben Gerrard) heads a firm that designs and distributes military guidance systems.

The couples are attended to by “experience curator” Felix Doyle (Robert Preston), whose personal circumstances are dire.

While he welcomes guests to the lap of luxury, his on-site lodgings are shoddy and dilapidated.

His partner, Sapphire Phoenix (Sapphire Blossom), with two young children in tow, is forever yelling and swearing at him to get the place fixed up.

The tensions that are apparent between this odd mix of people are set to explode.

Written, directed, produced, shot and edited by Sydney-based James Robert Woods, The Birthday Trip is a darkly comedic drama about class and privilege.

The problem is I simply didn’t buy what the filmmaker or the actors were selling – not for one moment.

Exaggerated personas at cross purposes exchanging pleasantries, beneath which lies a crass underbelly, may have seemed a good idea on paper.

But I am here to tell you that its execution is decidedly flawed. 

Building audience belief is the single biggest non-negotiable in any movie.

The idea of three of these four couples being together at all, let alone for an extended period, doesn’t wash. They are just too different.

I felt like I was watching the actors’ sprouting lines that they didn’t believe in. Authenticity … naturalism was severely lacking.

The dialogue is appalling. Maybe the filmmaker thought it was clever. It isn’t! It is just plain lazy.

Further, the movie took forever to take off – to build any connection with the audience.

My boredom (which is probably the worst thing one can say about a film) set in from the opening, when we witness two couples driving to the farm.

The Birthday Trip is mighty hard work and is up there with the worst movies I have seen this year. Give it a wide berth.

Rated MA, it scores a 2 out of 10.