THE BIRTHDAY PARTY

It’s been a big day for Nora. She got promoted, fought with her daughter about a viral reel she posted of the family dancing, and most importantly, tonight is her 40th birthday. She lives in the remote countryside with her husband, Thomas, and daughter, Ida, sharing the estate with Cristina, an artist neighbor busy painting works no one ever buys. But the evening doesn’t go as planned when three men arrive uninvited, claiming Nora is not who she says she is. Nora was expecting cake. Instead, she got served a slice of her unsavory past.

Night falls, and we are suddenly thrust into a heady mix of power games, shifting loyalties, and false appearances. Nora fights to protect the identity she has built, Cristina enters into her own dangerous confrontation with one of the men, and Ida begins to question the family story she has taken for granted. Who is telling the truth? Do we even want to know? Beneath the appearances, the women are never truly passive. They observe, strategize, change the rules of the game, and fight to shape the lives they have chosen for themselves.

Léa Mysius gifts us with another film exploring female subjectivity and secrets through genre, continuing the fascinating path she began with AVA and THE FIVE DEVILS. We are far more interested in its shifting identities and alliances than in simply finding out who will make it through the night. We are here for the clammy, uncanny, obsessive mood, and for the pleasure of watching identities crumble under pressure to reveal what survives—or blooms—from the wreckage. It is difficult to single out one performance from such an exceptional cast (Monica Bellucci, Hafsia Herzi, and Benoît Magimel, among others), but newcomer Tawba El Gharchi is incandescent. (SONIA DROULHIOLE)