Be forewarned: This movie is very low budget. The actors are probably not even payed. This film has lots of clichés and some usual typical archetypal heroes and villains, but the feelings of attachment to the characters is real. The characters go though some crap, but they stop short of self pity. I found myself cheering for them, and sharing their sadness too. Worth a watch, but don't have huge expectations. I am a big time Magnolia fan and I loved Short Cuts too, so the idea of several strangers sharing a birthday made me rent this. I don't regret it, but don't put it in the same category with the works of Robert Altman or(especially)PT Anderson.
6 Reviews
thought provoking
tristeza-216 November 2005
Warning: Spoilers
This film is very honest. Characters are well played and believable - and yet it's the believability what we expect from the actors the most. Five stories told here are usual, but yet moving. What surprised me the most, was fact that 'Happy Birthday' is not an optimistic movie - in fact only one of the five main characters' story ends up promising (but none of them leads to a happy ending). What makes the movie even more sad is the music - beautiful but still rather sorrowful. Watching these short stories makes us think about ourselves, about wasted chances and the way things turned out in our lives. Sometimes we might take things in our hands but usually events just hit us unsurprisingly - like in this movie. 'Happy Birthday" is simple, but beautiful and definitely worth seeing.
A Subtle Pleasure
eastendleo18 January 2015
Warning: Spoilers
Happy Birthday (2002) Director Yen Tan.
In an era when 'independent film' often means a budget of millions, a cast of up and coming young actors, and all the substance of popcorn, Happy Birthday is a beautiful example of a director's vision overcoming the pitfalls and shortcomings of an underfunded first feature.
The five characters we meet are filmed in close up, peeped at thru half open doors and caught in very intimate moments. And then the story opens up to place them in relation to others in the lead up to a birth day they all share.
Kelly gets dumped by her girlfriend and then receives a phone call from her first love. Javed awaits, with his porn star partner, the verdict on his request for immigration. Jim receives recognition for his excellence as a phone salesman for diet pills, while failing himself to lose weight. Tracy de-gays her apartment when her mother comes to visit from Taiwan. And Ron leads an ex-gay ministry without being able to kick a gay porn habit.
The story of being gay and lesbian in "Happy Birthday' is a gradual accretion of incident; no histrionics here. But because of this approach, the revelations and conflicts have the power of intimate disclosure. As if someone is whispering, we want to lean in to hear the more clearly.
And what we are being told, does, I think, have a theme.
"LGBT pride does not mean being proud of having been born lesbian, gay, bisexual, or trans. It means being proud of having survived...It's not easy to do...It takes work." Greta Christina.
Happy Birthday is that work of survival (or not) made visible.
It has to be mentioned that sound has its problems, the acting is not exceptional, and some scenes are confusing in intent. On the other hand the soundtrack music is spare, evocative and fitting. And a shout out has to go to Derik Webb as Troy, a man obviously destined to fail at ex-gay denial. His acting is subtle, fluid and utterly convincing. And the director shows a depth with his secondary characters that adds to the pleasure of this movie. The visiting mother's character and story is small but perfect.
In an era when 'independent film' often means a budget of millions, a cast of up and coming young actors, and all the substance of popcorn, Happy Birthday is a beautiful example of a director's vision overcoming the pitfalls and shortcomings of an underfunded first feature.
The five characters we meet are filmed in close up, peeped at thru half open doors and caught in very intimate moments. And then the story opens up to place them in relation to others in the lead up to a birth day they all share.
Kelly gets dumped by her girlfriend and then receives a phone call from her first love. Javed awaits, with his porn star partner, the verdict on his request for immigration. Jim receives recognition for his excellence as a phone salesman for diet pills, while failing himself to lose weight. Tracy de-gays her apartment when her mother comes to visit from Taiwan. And Ron leads an ex-gay ministry without being able to kick a gay porn habit.
The story of being gay and lesbian in "Happy Birthday' is a gradual accretion of incident; no histrionics here. But because of this approach, the revelations and conflicts have the power of intimate disclosure. As if someone is whispering, we want to lean in to hear the more clearly.
And what we are being told, does, I think, have a theme.
"LGBT pride does not mean being proud of having been born lesbian, gay, bisexual, or trans. It means being proud of having survived...It's not easy to do...It takes work." Greta Christina.
Happy Birthday is that work of survival (or not) made visible.
It has to be mentioned that sound has its problems, the acting is not exceptional, and some scenes are confusing in intent. On the other hand the soundtrack music is spare, evocative and fitting. And a shout out has to go to Derik Webb as Troy, a man obviously destined to fail at ex-gay denial. His acting is subtle, fluid and utterly convincing. And the director shows a depth with his secondary characters that adds to the pleasure of this movie. The visiting mother's character and story is small but perfect.
A touching exploration of pain
mail-9176512 February 2020
ambitious, flawed but promising...
davidals22 September 2003
Warning: Spoilers
*Minor spoilers*
Yen Tan's HAPPY BIRTHDAY is a very promising and provocative first feature - definitely flawed, but still interesting. A sort-of Altman-like shifting narrative revolving around 5 gay or lesbian characters who share a common birthday, HAPPY BIRTHDAY digs into the darkest issues that each character struggles with. The performances are uneven, but with a few standouts, especially Devashish Saxena, as Javed, who might be the real find here. The story is detailed, and diverse - it's refreshing to see a gay film with a sense of realism, a multiracial cast, and a very strong attempt at depicting something deeper than the usual yuppies-and-pretty boys schlock.
However, the story - in attempting to examine in detail many of the psychological undercurrents that impact the gay and lesbian community (self-esteem and self-hatred, cultural clashes with religious or ethnic identifications, body image, gay refugees & immigrants from other parts of the world, with a few others hinted at or touched upon in a more oblique fashion) too often drifts into the realm of pop psychology. The cast too often performs rituals of self-examination with a somber, stiff intensity that offers no subtlety, showing few hints of true reflection, instead talking through varied sociocultural truisms without displaying much indication that they (as characters) are thinking about what they are saying. The stars of HAPPY BIRTHDAY do manage to achieve soap opera-esquire level of performance in most spots, but given the subject matter (and the slice-of-life intent of the film) something more nuanced would've been preferable. Had Tan opened up the story a bit, allowing a bit of humor or a few casual moments of improv it might have come across as a more rich film.
Still Tan is to be commended for the effort - HAPPY BIRTHDAY in attempting to examine so many issues in one 94-minute film is dazzlingly ambitious. The plot lines revolving around the overweight telemarketer and the Pakistani who fled to the US to escape a violently homophobic family, only to face possible deportation should be singled out as very lifelike and sharply defined. Overall, HAPPY BIRTHDAY is well-crafted enough to offer the possibility that Yen Tan may well deliver a thoughtful, hard-hitting look into the complex psyche of the gay and lesbian world.
Yen Tan's HAPPY BIRTHDAY is a very promising and provocative first feature - definitely flawed, but still interesting. A sort-of Altman-like shifting narrative revolving around 5 gay or lesbian characters who share a common birthday, HAPPY BIRTHDAY digs into the darkest issues that each character struggles with. The performances are uneven, but with a few standouts, especially Devashish Saxena, as Javed, who might be the real find here. The story is detailed, and diverse - it's refreshing to see a gay film with a sense of realism, a multiracial cast, and a very strong attempt at depicting something deeper than the usual yuppies-and-pretty boys schlock.
However, the story - in attempting to examine in detail many of the psychological undercurrents that impact the gay and lesbian community (self-esteem and self-hatred, cultural clashes with religious or ethnic identifications, body image, gay refugees & immigrants from other parts of the world, with a few others hinted at or touched upon in a more oblique fashion) too often drifts into the realm of pop psychology. The cast too often performs rituals of self-examination with a somber, stiff intensity that offers no subtlety, showing few hints of true reflection, instead talking through varied sociocultural truisms without displaying much indication that they (as characters) are thinking about what they are saying. The stars of HAPPY BIRTHDAY do manage to achieve soap opera-esquire level of performance in most spots, but given the subject matter (and the slice-of-life intent of the film) something more nuanced would've been preferable. Had Tan opened up the story a bit, allowing a bit of humor or a few casual moments of improv it might have come across as a more rich film.
Still Tan is to be commended for the effort - HAPPY BIRTHDAY in attempting to examine so many issues in one 94-minute film is dazzlingly ambitious. The plot lines revolving around the overweight telemarketer and the Pakistani who fled to the US to escape a violently homophobic family, only to face possible deportation should be singled out as very lifelike and sharply defined. Overall, HAPPY BIRTHDAY is well-crafted enough to offer the possibility that Yen Tan may well deliver a thoughtful, hard-hitting look into the complex psyche of the gay and lesbian world.
everyone should speak about...
gogobear29 August 2004
I've seen the movie on a premiere night and the taste that I had after watching it was that I really saw the life, in 3 days, of 5 different people. The movie never really managed to be shown in Greece, not to mention Great Halls. But all the other commercial crap that I have seen 2 years after this film, make me believe that the movie factory is a game of advertising and here we have an unjustified looser. This movie never really had the super hero inside or the super actor or the super body or breasts inside. It was real life. Some might say that the acting was that of a soap opera. Major Mistake. What are we supposed to consider as acting? Good make-up tears and heart throbbing script? The film really deserved 10 out of 10 and the actors made me really believe that they felt their characters.
Nikolas
P.S. Hope to see it in DVD form, soon.
Nikolas
P.S. Hope to see it in DVD form, soon.
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