*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.