The Celebration

Synopsis

The Celebration is a rude and robust black comedy about incest, families and bad behaviour at black-tie functions. The occasion is the 60th birthday of the family patriarch, and the one-year anniversary of a sister's suicide. A sort of twisted politeness is maintained until a drunken son outrages the gathering with a shocking toast, which sets the tone for the rest of the mad, disastrous weekend. There's a full canvas of wretches here: cynics, bullies, the soft-hearted, the wily and the vile. Though the weekend-of-family-horrors story is familiar territory, director Vinterberg, with his aggressively moving hand-held camera and the expertly nuanced performances of his cast, mines new surprises out of the old familial hell. – Liam Lacey, The Globe & Mail.