Il compleanno
Tags: home movie

Plot synopsis:
Two couples of friends, Matteo and Francesca, Diego and Shary go to see Wagner's opera, Tristan and
Isolde. By chance, they encounter Leonard, Shary's younger brother, who is briefly passing through Italy.
Leonard is still profoundly marked by the death of his girlfriend. Shary insists he come stay with them in
the beautiful villa on the beach that the two couples have rented for the summer.
Matteo, a 40 year-old established psychoanalyst, is married to Francesca, with whom they have a 5 yearold
daughter, Elena. Matteo,, has a solidly happy, although not explosively passionate relationship with
Francesca. Diego is an eternal child, who with great difficulty chose to become a lawyer; at a very young
age he discovered that Shary, the American girl he was dating, was pregnant with his child. After David
was born, Diego and Shary got married, broke up, then got back together. Theirs is a passionate but
unstable relationship. David, having grown up in the United States, where he now goes to boarding
school, comes back to Italy after five years to spend the summer with his family. Davids arrival deeply
unsettles Matteo. Trying to escape his growing obsession, Matteo escapes to Rome to treat one of his
patients, Giuliana. The delicate balance between friends has been upset. The growing tension seems to
corrode the two families. Cracks appear in Matteo and Francescas relationship. Old disagreements
between Shary and Diego flare up. It is as if everyone knows the truth, but is afraid to confront it.
Leonard, having tried in vain to warn his sister and deter Matteo, decides to take off, leaving the main
characters to their inevitable destiny.

Review: Not Overly Long and Definitely Not Limp.
As you watch this film, you'll find yourself wanting to scream, "Don't do it.
Stop!
Stop!," that is, if you have ever betrayed the best that you have for something that you should not obtain.
The acting is excellent, and believe me, after having watched more than my fair share of French films, this Italian creation is an action film in comparison.
A malevolent, mythological undertone, the antithesis of those mystical experiences found in Italy by E.
M. Forester's Brits on vacation, lurks just below the surface as the story lurches toward what did not have to be inevitable.
If you watch closely and listen intently, David's Birthday says much about betrayal and unrequited love..
Nice movie !.
A Great Italian movie.
I didn't like the ending though , but still a wonderful movie (why should all gay relationships be tarnished with guilt by writers).
For some reason European films have a lower ranking than Hollywood films on IMDb even though they are sometimes of better quality.
This is a great drama film.
Whats great about this movie is the way it recreates moments and precisely conveys what the characters are feeling - the bike scene with David and Matteo is superbly done with background song "zingara" - interpreted by Iva Zanicchi, which is great.
The actor who plays David's character is a real hotty by the way, watch out for an intimate scene with a song by Loretta Goggi - "Maledetta Primavera" in the background.
The opera style music played in the beginning and end is a bit strong I felt - reminds me of 'Death in Venice'.
The movie has a great realistic and natural style to it, everything including conversation flows smoothly and is completely engrossing.
A good watch..
Brilliant Italian Film.
Maybe it's because I'm Italian but this Italian film is absolutely brilliant.
Anyone who says otherwise obviously doesn't get it based on what the various reviews here say.
Nor is this film for the faint of heart or the weak of mind.
It is stimulating, thoughtful, and very intense because you never know what will happen next, a true sign of a great film.
It keeps you at the edge of your seat biting your fingernails.
But any film that begins with a Wagner opera is nothing to sneeze at and if you don't get Wagner you won't get this film either.
Visually, it is nothing less than stunning, in fact may very well be the most beautiful film I have ever seen.
The eroticism is unprecedented, true art, done so perfect that I sat there with my mouth open because it never borders on the vulgar.
The cast is sublime, just about the most perfect casting you can imagine..
Worth seeing only for Massimo Poggio's great performance.
I am somewhere between liking and disliking this movie, so I am giving it five stars.
What I like is the lovely performance by Massimo Poggio as Matteo; if the rest if the movie had been on his level it would have gotten an easy eight stars.
But it was as if he was working all alone in an otherwise uniformly mediocre undertaking.The story, the dialog, the pacing and all the other performances are more like a soap opera than any other movie I can think of, with overblown emotions, preposterous developments, a lot of yelling and crying, and almost continual minor crises of one kind or another - even convenient interruptions for commercial breaks (what another reviewer brilliantly described as fadeaways).I am a gay man, but I did not find Thyago Alves attractive at all, so the fact that Massimo Poggio made his obsession with the boy totally credible is part of his achievement.
His is a stunning, subtle, restrained, and deeply moving performance.
So I can recommend this movie highly for his work, but not for anything else..
Long and Limp.
This is an overlong Italian soap opera about two fortyish married couples sharing a beautiful beach home for the summer; when the long-absent 18-year-old son of husband #1 shows up, husband #2 falls hard.
All sorts of complications might arise, but the film just flounders around for almost two hours, until it finally ends in (you guessed it!) tragedy.
(All those shots emphasizing husband #1's wedding ring were a dead giveaway that this would end in tears.) There's some nice scenery, a little eye-candy, and lots of talking and eating and strolling on the beach.
This movie offers a long, slow haul to a limp, contrived finish..
Modern Opera.
Built on the theme of ill-fated love, this film merges modern cinema with opera and emerges with a hybrid which infuses the viewer with a morality tale under two hours duration.
Emotional theatrics reveal the frayed and tattered mental state of these two couples as both attempt to keep the appearances of functional family ties and friendships.
While some USA viewers may find the emotional intensity "over the top," I find it similar to the emotional intensity that was infused into American Western genre when it went Italian and added an operatic theme to the story-telling.
While no bullets are flying in a "pulp fiction" sensational style, the emotional content and the poignant plot climax enliven a rather dull scenario of viewing yet another "Doing Time on Maple Drive" clone-film with subtitles..
A response to a few earlier comments.
Put it this way, if I were rating this movie on attractive male actors, it'd be a ten.
The scenery is beautiful, as well.
Other than that, this movie wasn't bad.
I (like someone else mentioned) had a problem with the lack of forethought put into Matteo's sudden desire for David.
It was evident from pretty early on that David is gay, but I thought more could have been done to make Matteo's sexuality believable.
Also, I had a problem with the tantrums thrown by Shary.
They were soap opera-esque and really distracted me from buying into the reality of the movie.Also, someone mentioned that the uncle (Leonard) was there as a fifth wheel?
I whole- heartedly disagree, and I think that you don't understand the movie if you don't appreciate the uncle's role.
His story serves as the foreshadowing of things to come.
He sees Matteo looking at his nephew, and indirectly warns Matteo not to get involved with David, telling him that there are "some roads you can't turn back on," in reference to the "mistake" he made two years ago with Isabelle.
Leonard makes sure that Matteo knows that what he is about to do is wrong, and will have severe consequences (which it does) and, like Leonard, he will never be the same.
I do agree, though, that this movie could have done without the third couple..
A Grand Soap Opera.....and, oh yes, includes a........
.......Boiling hot M/M sex scene at its end.....with full frontal added in.
(But, what did you expect.....it's Italian)What we have here is a lush surroundings showcase for one very "hot bod".....in the form of title character, David (tall, dark, first-timer, Thyago Alves).
And as the one bedeviled and bedazzled by this youthful sex god, we're given family man, Matteo (Massimo Poggio), a psychiatrist by trade, and a man who the first half of the film goes out of its way to show as being scholarly, but even more so, soulful.This is a production much like the then well known 1950s era, Douglas Sirk directed, lush and weepy melodramas (see "Magnificent Obsession" or "All That Heaven Allows").
For a more current approach to this genre, see the Todd Haynes written/directed work, and Dennis Quaid's one foray into homosexuality: "Far From Heaven" (2002)."David's Birthday" is also what I refer to as a "fadeaway" movie, meaning it's something more usually seen from the 1940s through '70s.
You know how those went; when anything sexual might begin to transpire, there was always a quick fadeaway to the next scene.
For examples of that in this film, consider the following: Putting yourself into the position of a young and gorgeous Calvin Klein-type underwear model (David), you take this still hunky, but older, married man (Matteo) for a Vespa scooter ride.....his unhelmeted head winds up resting softly against your back, his arms clasped tightly around your body.
And then nothing further happens for days.......UNTIL a night on the beach, when this young Adonis emerges from a moonlit swim and approaches his walking-on-the-beach "enraptured soul".....both of them then standing together for at least a minute, staring in one another's eyes.
UNTIL.......you guessed it: Fadeaway.Awarded 5-Stars, above.....but perhaps it merits another Star cause I like looking at Matteo.....while most of you will likely prefer to eyeball David.****.
Very long and mostly boring...........
I can't really improve on Jm10701 or Steve222's reviews.
This is an overly long soap opera.
Yes, the scenery is beautiful and it is easy to catch the mood the director is shooting for since the actors do their jobs well.
While I agree with Jm10701 the only person who really stands out is Massimo Poggio (Matteo) I think he had the best part too.
It is hard to shine when your lines or part don't.
I didn't know what the third couple was there for or the Uncle.
Talk about fifth wheels.Anyway, if you decide to spend almost two hours on this muddled, floundering mess, you may want to know (Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler) - the much anticipated sex scene doesn't occur until the very very last couple minutes.
Even this they ruined by cutting away e v e r y second to show Matteo's wife winding her way up the stairs to catch Matteo & David at it.
Cut away a little sure, for "suspense." But no, every second.
Ruins it..
Oooops!
You dirty little finger!
You bad bad dirty uncle!
You bad bad dirty uncle!
How come you turned suddenly gay?
Well, bad uncle turns suddenly gay, on the exact inverted ratio this film turns operatic, and just plain bad.
Do films this bad get still made?
Apparently, so.
I for one thought that this kind of muddled film-making was something I left behind in the 80's, when I was a kid: the Mediterranean sea, the sky, the sun and the moon, and some adults scattered like scenery moving among the elements for no great purpose.
Some nice candy though - just the next time make the sex scene longer than the mutilated, really cringing Wagner reference, you conceited amateurs!
And make it even bigger and larger, in fact take out all footage of psychotherapy sessions and give us some sex, give some to you, too!
Someone in this film hates his analyst, or is in need of one, for there is nothing that rings true concerning the analytic situation.As it is the only reference (someone mentions Sirk - my foot) - are you ready to cringe?
- is some sort of delirious "Death in Venice"...gone south, and turned into "Death to Penis".
Oscar Wilde does it again!
"All bad poetry is sincere." So, if you feel like a sincere film, or don't have time enough to bring in any psychotherapeutic association, or the Wagner Society to sue the makers of this film, relax and watch it!
I have to admit that in the end, when tragedy happens and naked David brings his hands to his face, covering it in convulsions as if in recognition of the tragedy - THAT was so bad it turned me on.
Bad, bad, dirty me..
Italian variations on Eros and Thanatos.
CONTAINS SPOILERS.
Queer themed Italian cinema needs to grow up, this recent entry in the canon is all the further proof we need.
Not nearly as god-awful as Ferzan Ozpetek's critically revered and homophobic HAMAM, DAVID'S BIRTHDAY is not immune to the sacrificial lamb syndrome.
The "controversial" twist is all in on who will get butchered this time around, because we all know that homosexual desire is harbinger of doom.
Slow paced and poorly written, often the case with publicly-funded Italian cinema, the film plays out as a cross pollinated low rent hybrid of Visconti's "Death in Venice" and Malle's "Damage".
Such high influences are clearly stated over and over again, but high art - or even simple lyricism - are definitely out of reach for Marco Filiberti's fraudulent hands..
"Powerful Subconscious Forces Act Within Us ...".
Life is an opera..
And so it seems..."the characters becoming prey to their own impulses..." This is the story of a married man named Matteo and his sexual longing for the young visiting hunk David.
Would he give in to his desires?
What consequences await them?Massimo Poggio who plays Matteo is an eye-turner even for his age.
He is also one brilliant actor though I must admit I find him over the top when he got drunk at that party night.Film has some good sceneries spiced up with appropriate music.
There are other subplots which may or may not move the story forward.
Is there anything else going on between Uncle Leo and David.Don't miss the last 15 minutes.
If you love drama and sexual tension, this is for you...