Three Birthdays (2023), by Jane Weinstock
THIS ARTICLE HAS SPOILERS
What do you want for your birthday? Sometimes we get what we want, but sometimes birthday wishes are granted with so much more than we asked for — and this isn’t necessarily always good.
April 22nd 1970. It’s Bobbie’s (Nuala Cleary) 17th birthday and she keeps one birthday wish hidden from her happy and proud parents: she wants to lose her virginity. She manages to have her wish come true when she goes to a motel with her boyfriend. At the motel a car calls her attention because of the “make music, not war” adhesive glued to the car. Later she sees the car again, and has a surprise: it’s her mother who emerges from the vehicle that had been earlier at the motel. Her first impulse is to tell her father, but she chooses to keep the secret.
April 26th 1970. It’s Rob’s (Josh Radnor) birthday and he’s appalled to find out that his daughter is having sex with her boyfriend. At the same time, Rob is alright with his wife having a relationship with another guy. Then he learns — on his birthday! — that he isn’t getting tenure on his current job, but there is a new position on the horizon that would demand from the family to move to a different town. When his wife tells she doesn’t want to move, Rob goes to vent… to his lover.
May 4th 1970. It’s Kate’s (Annie Parisse) birthday and, after having sex as a gift, she talks to her husband about their open relationship status and finds out that he too had an affair, but didn’t say anything to her. More: she learns that their teenage daughter knows about her affair — but only hers, not his. She ends up finding out who was her husband’s lover, and also learns that he had lied to her. Things get chaotic then, when her daughter gets into trouble.
Kate, Rob and Bobbie are mother, father and daughter. Through their three brithdays, we accompany this family saga set during the second wave of feminism — a time and context that share more similitudes with our time and context than we usually think about.
The time when the story happens, 1970, is also a time for protests, especially against the Vietnam War and the occupation of Asian territories. Bobbie attends those protests with friends, against her parents’ wishes, and things escalate quickly. Protests were, as some still are now, met with police violence and this is what happens in the movie. Robbie is shot in the chest by the police, and suddenly this accident seems to be what was missing to keep the family together.
Bobbie’s friend Joyce (Gus Birney) says that what Bobbie’s mother did — aka the affair — was part of the sexual revolution, to which Bobbie replies that the sexual revolution isn’t for them (her parents). Joyce then says that the sexual revolution is for everybody. Bobbie also says, directly to her mother, that Kate uses feminism and the concept of oppression to her own advantage. These scenes evoke a question common in the feminist circles: does your feminism include your mother? Mothers are seen as unique beings, sometimes sexless untouchable goddesses, sometimes people that do everything to see us happy and fulfilled. Aren’t you oppressing your mother with your actions? And why what is true for most women — like the sexual liberation in the film — can’t be valid for your mother?
Kate brings her dilemmas about sexual liberation to the classroom, as she’s a teacher in a university. To a female-only class, she talks about the pros and cons of sexual liberation, saying that some women only saw their husbands flirting around while they obtained nothing from the open relationship agreement. Others, on the other hand, felt truly liberated, free at last. But there is trouble in the horizon: what if the open relationship status hurts people you love?
Talking to a friend about the future, Kate says “divorce laws are so f*** sexist!” This is because, when considering divorce, Kate’s friend says that, because she cheated on her husband, she wouldn’t get Bobbie’s guard, no matter if he cheated too. Divorce rates were on the rise in 1970, as most states, following California’s lead, were passing no-fault divorce laws — that meant that a spouse could ask for a divorce without having to present a cause for it. It was also on the growth the belief that children were OK with divorce, as seeing their parents unhappy together would be more harmful than seeing them split.
Many people say that women can’t write good male characters. This rings partially true for director and screenwriter Jane Weinstock. Rob isn’t a bad character, but he’s less interesting and less likeable than Kate and Bobbie. Josh Radnor, probably for “star power”, is billed first in the credits, but Rob isn’t the lead — it’s clearly Bobbie who has this role.
The historical background in “Three Birthdays” is strong, but could have been stronger. I would love to have seen Bobbie and Kate taking part in the protests that occurred everywhere in the USA on August 26th, 1970, for women’s equality and peace. It was a matter of simply moving one of the three birthdays forward, and it would have been an opportunity for mother and daughter to reconcile after Bobbie misjudged Kate for her affair. As we learn in the end, even three years after the happening, Bobbie didn’t forgive her mother.
The movie won the Award for Excellence in Directing a Narrative Film from the New York Women on Film and Television. It’s director’s Jane Weinstock first film in ten years, and it’s a good one to resurrect her career — in fact, for the movie Jane won the Best Feature Director award at the LA Femme Film Festival. “Three Birthdays” serves as much more than a cinematographic production: it’s a conversation starter, especially for feminists and, because of that, worth a look.
