Birthday Girl (2024)

“Nanna” (Trine Dyrholm) has a strained relationship with her daughter “Cille” (Flora Lindahl) and so invites her and her friend “Lea” (Maja Ida Thiele) onto a Caribbean cruise to celebrate her birthday. The boat duly sets sail and the girls meet “Kevin” (Herman Tammeraas) and his brother “Ryan” (Nathan Popa) and they all let their hair down. A trip out to the boat deck for “Cille” doesn’t not end well, and now distressed, hungover and unable to recall just what did happen, her mother is convinced that she has been raped. She reports her suspicions to the authorities, but with her daughter unwilling to undergo any sort of medical and the ship being in somewhat muddy international waters, they claim their hands are tied and so it falls to “Nanna” to try to identify and shame the culprit. The question is, with “Cille” remaining adamantly uncooperative with her mother, even in private, is she going to get the right man? Too much of this drama is based on the scare factor of the alleged deed and nowhere near enough on developing a characterful story that engages. We are selectively drip-fed information that is manoeuvring us to a series of conclusions that I felt distinctly uncomfortable about. On the one hand we have a “victim” who refuses to incriminate her offender - but is that because there was no offence, or because she doesn’t remember, or because she is ashamed or a bit of all three? Meantime we are encouraged to see one of these young men as a cocky sexual predator without really having any more to go on than a kiss and her mother’s guilt-ridden suspicions. From here on in the scenarios lurch around in a fashion that might be intended to convey the exasperation of “Nanna”, but by presenting an entirely one-sided perspective I actually started to dislike this woman, quite intensely. The denouement is something straight out of Agatha Christie, with an all too convenient wrapping up of events that is every bit as obnoxious as the crime itself. To really get to the heart of depictions of sex crimes like this, you can’t just sail along encouraging the audience to make assumptions about boozed-up responsibility and consent without far more substantial characterisations otherwise it just perpetuates man-hating attitudes that help no one.