Henry Gamble's Birthday Party movie review (2016)
The first scene is a quiet stunner. Two boys, Henry Gamble (Cole Doman) and his friend Gabe (Joe Keery) lie on their sides in bed; when they speak, they stare directly into the camera. The angle suddenly shifts to an omniscient one and it’s the first time you see that they’re in the same bed. They’re talking about Henry’s birthday party later that day and Gabe talks in great detail about what he would like to do to a particular hot girl who will be there. There’s an eroticism in their dynamic, although they never touch, and the scene culminates in the two of them masturbating, side by side. The most striking thing is that the scene is both sexual and innocent at the same time. Afterwards, they head on down to the family breakfast where they all join hands in prayer. Neither boy blinks an eye at the incongruity. Everything is set up right there: the shared faith, the burgeoning sexuality, and the uneasy yet unconscious compromises made between the two.
Guests start arriving for Henry’s party. Henry’s Dad, Bob (Pat Healy), a minister, has invited some adults from the church to attend the party, and Henry’s mom, Kat (Elizabeth Laidlaw) has some unspoken feelings about that. Kat has a lot of unspoken feelings. Henry’s older sister Autumn (Nina Ganet) is home from her small Christian college. She still wears her purity ring, although a self-deprecating comment made to a friend about the ring suggests there’s more going on there. Kids from church arrive, throwing off their clothes and leaping into the pool. A couple of friends from Henry’s high school also show up, and segregation commences between the “church” kids and the “secular” kids. The two groups keep a wary distance from one another. Another kid, Logan (Daniel Kyri), arrives, his openly conflicted nature pulsing off of him, creating waves of anxiety in everyone else. Henry isn’t thrilled Logan has shown up, and there are awkward stilted interactions. Ricky (Patrick Andrews), a young man with a misery-haunted face, sticks close to the adults up on the porch. Same with Grace (Darci Nalepa), a young girl in a prim sundress, who sits next to her mother, throwing longing glances down at the pool.
One of the adult couples shows up with a box of wine, and Bob hides it under the sink like a naughty teenager. This is not a drinking crowd, and Bob the minister has to set a good example. Bob and Kat don’t even have wine glasses in the house so when the inevitable happens, and the adults start sneaking off one by one to gulp down wine in the laundry room, they have to use coffee mugs. “You know, Jesus drank,” slurs one of the guys later in the party. Grace’s humorless mother tut-tuts about the girls’ bikinis and then launches into a monologue about the horrors of sex-trafficking and pornography. The other grown-ups, churchy though they may be, are visibly bored.
