Birthday Movies?

Why are there no classic birthday movies? I'm thinking of this because my birthday was yesterday and it just made me wonder.

There are Christmas movies galore, Valentine's Day movies, even Thanksgiving movies, but no great birthday movies. And think about it, we all have birthdays, most people enjoy a birthday celebration of some sort…so why aren't there movies about this yearly event which we all share?

A couple of films have birthdays at the center of their story. Sixteen Candles [1984] is all about a girl whose family forgets her 16^th birthday. Easy premise and it's become a bit of a cult classic, a kind of rite of passage for teenagers. And The Game [1997] is a psychological thriller with a very cool premise: a rich loner businessman is turning 48 and gets a present from his n'er do well brother. The present is to play this 'game' created especially for him by this company that does that sort of thing for the super-rich. Both of these films have birthdays at their core.

There are also films like 13 Going on 30 [2004] where the birthday is a catalyst for the story. In this case, a girl wishes on her 13^th birthday that she was 30. The film, though, like Big [1988] is all about a kid getting the wish to be older. That's different than a film about birthdays per se. Other films use birthdays as a catalyst to tell a story but it's really tough to find a 'birthday' film.

So let's write one.

Shared events often make good films because they have at their core something that's personal to everyone. We all have birthdays, we all do something on that day-even if it's just mope around-so surely there's something there to be mined.

Let's just take one aspect of birthdays-the surprise party. Think about how you could make a film called The Surprise Party. What are the possibilities? Here are a few to get you going:

[1] What if a wife invites her husband's friends to a surprise party and, unbeknownst to her, one of her husband's co-workers brings the husband's mistress as a date?

[2] What if a group of teens tells the most popular girl in school that they have a surprise for her birthday. They blindfold her, walk her through the woods, and come to a setting right out of 1850s America-where she's put in a stockade and tortured, because it turns out she's a bit of a bitch and her classmates have had it.

[3] What if a 17-year-old teen throws a surprise party for his single dad-inviting all the eligible single women he knows, from teachers to café owners to artists… but during the party, more of these women are coming on to him than his dad… surprise!

Copyright © Diane Lake

29Jan17

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