After defying expectations in the East, critically-acclaimed indie satire The Birthday Trip lands on the West Coast today, screening exclusively at Luna Leederville. Despite being snubbed by festivals and distributors, the film was self-released by the filmmakers, and has gone on to out-perform films in its weight class from established distributors, garnering substantial critical acclaim including 4-star reviews in The Guardian and The Canberra Times, and The Australian calling it “A must-see Australian story”.
The film is an acerbic non-rom-com that follows three upwardly mobile millennial couples who descend on a luxury farmstay to celebrate a joint thirtieth birthday. There’s a Weapons Manufacturer, an ABC Development Coordinator, a Finance Bro, a Painter… the full spectrum of the Aussie elite. Chaos ensues: Infidelity, inequality, inebriation – Simmering social dynamics captured with an immersive camera, before the trip culminates in one of the biggest stunts in Aussie indie cinema history: a twenty-tonne bulldozer smashing clean through a house.
With a string of sellout screenings across the country at Dendy Newtown, Thornbury Picture House, Golden Age Cinema, Eclipse Collingwood and the 400-seat Sydney Cinémathèque, now it’s Perth/Boorloo’s chance to come and see how the other half live.
Listen to the interview with filmmaker James Robert Woods here:
Andrew F Peirce
Press for The Birthday Trip
★ ★ ★ ★ “Compelling” (The Guardian)
★ ★ ★ ★ “Caustic” (The Canberra Times)
“Tense, palpable, provocative” (The Conversation)
“One of the best Australian films of the year” Cinema Australia
“A well-lubricated descent into the hell that is other people” (SMH / The Age)
