AAA<\/p>\n
A weekend away in a beautiful rural retreat with your oldest friends and their respective partners: it sounds like the makings of a great time. But in The Birthday Trip, the debut feature from writer-director-cinematographer James Robert Woods, it makes for a well-lubricated descent into the hell that is other people.<\/p>\n
And with its tightly framed handheld camera, spiky dialogue and prickly performances, the movie positively ripples with a sense of veracity. Woods, you sense, knows these people.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was born of years and years of pent-up observations,\u201d he says of the film he has self-financed with his wife and fellow filmmaker, Stephanie Day, through their production company, Badlands. \u201cObserving relationships in their natural habitat, observing people, observing dysfunction, being at a dinner party with that couple who should have broken up years ago, and just thinking, \u2018Why am I having to deal with your issues?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
The three women at this joint 30th gathering are old schoolmates. But it soon becomes clear that their bond may owe more to custom than simpatico.<\/p>\n
![\"Isabel](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/c1cfa92ee2605619218dc47f107f7eab86d7cf99.jpeg\")
Isabel (Annelise Hall) loosens up over lunch.Badlands<\/p>\n
Clare (Nicola Frew) is a painter, whose favourite colour appears to be envy green. Angie (Josephine Starte) is a documentary maker whose latest project is an anthropological study of the inhabitants of the Faroe Islands and their strange marriage customs. Isabel (Annelise Hall) has just started as a production co-ordinator at the ABC but has her eyes set on becoming head of content within five years.<\/p>\n
This gathering is the first time their partners have met each other, or the other women. Lars (Luke Jacobz) is a hyper-competitive finance bro and, improbably, soon to marry Angie. Mark (Ben Gerrard) works in the weapons trade, and is on the brink of a multibillion-dollar deal with Turkey, though he seems much more interested in the idea of bringing Clare into his sex life with Isabel.<\/p>\n
What Jim Conrad (David Quirk) does for a crust isn\u2019t entirely clear \u2013 comedian, probably \u2013 but he is sharp-eyed, cynical, and locked in a cycle of bitter dispute with the chronically jealous Clare, who accuses him, with some justification, of being a lech.<\/p>\n
Aspects of the character are, Woods readily admits, \u201cmy self-insert \u2026 every time there\u2019s a diatribe or a wordy opinion or some sort of acerbic deconstruction, that was usually just me, something I\u2019d say at a dinner party, but with no one to shut me up.\u201d<\/p>\n
As the weekend unravels, so do the bonds that allegedly tie these friends, and these couples, together. It\u2019s a painful and funny watch, and a familiar one. We\u2019ve all been there, right? Well, Woods certainly has.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve lived in that world and been to those resorts and dinner parties,\u201d he says. \u201cUpper-middle-class Sydneysiders is a world I understand. And I think when you\u2019re doing satire or class commentary, the call has to come from inside the house, because otherwise it doesn\u2019t ring true. I feel like you can only render it authentically if you\u2019ve lived amongst it.\u201d<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a touch of the David Williamson about all this (yes, Williamson started in Melbourne, but a more Sydney voice it\u2019s hard to imagine). When I suggest that to Woods, he\u2019s a little flattered.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would very bashfully acknowledge a link, yes,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019d like to think the film punches in a similar direction with a similar vigour.\u201d<\/p>\n
There\u2019s also a touch of Woody Allen about the merciless examination of people who imagine themselves to be good but who show themselves to be somewhat less than. \u201cI mean, we watched Match Point as a reference, Hannah and Her Sisters, Husbands and Wives,\u201d he says, nominating Allen\u2019s mid-to-late period domestic dramedies. \u201cI don\u2019t think I would endorse him as a human being, but some of his work, and the way he makes dialogue sing, is impressive.\u201d<\/p>\n
A few other reference points: Noah Baumbach and Aaron Sorkin \u2013 \u201cI know it\u2019s a bit naff, but the way he does exposition, and the way people talk at cross purposes and step on one another is so engaging.\u201d<\/p>\n
And if you detect in the rough-and-ready, near-verite feel of the movie a hint of Thomas Vinterberg\u2019s Festen, well the next round is probably on Woods.<\/p>\n
He was living in Denmark, home of the no-frills, no post-production Dogma movement of which Vinterberg\u2019s 1995 film was the first example, when he decided to get serious about filmmaking, eventually doing a master\u2019s degree in directing at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School (AFTRS).<\/p>\n
![\"Writer-director](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/a527cb8ef5046593621fae06ec3bc27463897531.jpeg\")
Writer-director James Robert Woods on set with Sapphire Blossom, who plays the wife of the long-suffering estate manager.Badlands<\/p>\n
He\u2019d been working in reality television for a few years to that point. \u201cI did the audition tours for MAFS early on, going around the country and filming the auditions. The content is questionable, perhaps, but there were amazing people making it, very talented screen professionals. It was really fun, but not totally fulfilling.\u201d<\/p>\n
As a side hustle, he\u2019d been making videos with a friend under the banner StuntBear, a couple of which went \u201cpretty crazily viral\u201d. One was a mash-up of news footage from the world\u2019s hotspots, overlaid with real complaints from Domino\u2019s customers. As a take-down of First World problems, it was as devastatingly effective as it was simple.<\/p>\n
It was at AFTRS that Woods and Day met and fell in love. After graduating they launched Badlands as a vehicle for their independent work (until now, short films and music videos), while doing commercial and corporate work on the side to pay the bills.<\/p>\n
![\"Rebecca](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1784866993_587_55beb512105764ad5439fdb124635938dc0a5769.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/95dc4c9146d5d4ba13000e7758e73040903504b1.jpeg\")
The not-so-happy revellers, and their hosts: (back left to right) Robert Preston, Sapphire Blossom, Josephine Starte, Ben Gerrard and Luke Jacobz; (front) David Quirk, Nicola Frew and Annelise Hall.Badlands<\/p>\n