THE STORY – It’s every adult’s worst nightmare: moving back in with their parents. Having done just that, a down-and-out husband and his pregnant wife quickly realize that his folks don’t want them around, triggering a raucous power struggle that goes off the rails.
THE CAST – Travis Jeffery, Maria Angelico, Michael Hurst & Linda Cropper
THE TEAM – Zoe Pepper (Director/Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 90 Minutes
A movie that bases its core tension on something many of us had to muster the courage to endure for the bulk of the COVID-19 pandemic’s earliest, most terrifying days, Zoe Pepper’s “Birthright” asks a fundamental question: How bad can moving back into your parents’ place really be? When they’re as severe as Lyn (Linda Cropper) and Richard (Michael Hurst), whose son Cory (Travis Jeffery) and his very pregnant wife Jasmine (Maria Angelico) need a spot to squat after they’re evicted and Cory loses his job, the answer is so simple to the point where cheap motels, even homeless shelters start to look attractive. If only things were that simple for the down-on-their-luck couple, who didn’t want this to become their only means to an end and certainly grow to wish they’d never bothered to resort to it once “Birthright’s” dysfunction evolves from fundamental domestic disagreements to a full-on power struggle that threatens the well-being and lives of its participants.
The problem with this conceit is that its outcome is predetermined in one way or another. The film’s tension is bound to lead to darkness, whether in the form of violence or something profoundly and psychologically discomfiting, and while Pepper never pretends that this isn’t the case, lost in translation is the very concept of mystery. Its characters are so painfully one-note – a husband and wife whose misfortune is deemed a burden by his parents and her in-laws since they “should’ve had [their] own house by now” rather than renting – that the introduction of a snap from either side feels as inevitable as complaints about hygiene and sleeping too late in the day. Jasmine’s pregnancy doesn’t help matters, and as her discomfort increases, Cory’s father suggests that he’s losing himself in his marriage and should consider the choices he’s making. Never mind the fact that he’s out of choices to make and needs help from his parents, who turn out to be the last two people on earth who would ever be willing to offer it.
Marketing “Birthright” as a twisted pitch-black comedy makes its on-the-nose sadistic humor much easier to accept at face value, though there’s little fun to be had here. That’s almost surely Pepper’s point – that shacking up with the elders who consider the gift of life as grounds for owing them everything as long as you’re living it is an absurd notion chock-full of funny storytelling opportunities – but making good on that idea takes more than two convincingly cruel elders (a bill that Cropper and Hurst fit with ease). It takes an honest reason for that treatment that goes beyond disappointment in their son’s choice to pursue a degree in the arts, and it definitely takes more than a reliance on needle drops to set the film’s shaky tone, one that seems as though it’s constantly on the verge of causing its actors to break. Imagine the bleakest imaginable “Saturday Night Live” skit about staying with your in-laws, and you’re halfway to what “Birthright” tends to feel like for most of its runtime, save for the genuine laughs it wants to accumulate.
Of course, there’s something to be said for Pepper and Co. committing to their one and only bit with hopes that audiences might be inclined to believe that the folks on screen actually want to wring each other’s necks. But “Birthright” never reaches that stage in terms of its absurdity. It’s hard not to wonder what the film might have looked like if it framed things from an alternate perspective, as in having those in need be the ones immediately driven mad by fury despite their host’s generosity. This might have made Pepper’s “thriller-comedy” a bit more thrilling, a bit more comedic. Instead, it’s stale and, if not lifeless, then lacking in its promise for unbridled chaos, at least until the very end. It’s a lot like returning to your childhood bedroom after a long time away: Familiar and exciting for a moment, but by the end of your stay, you remember why you bought a new mattress: fewer lumps, sweeter dreams, and more captivating nightmares.
