A bold and unsettling dark comedy that weaponizes family tension with surgical precision. Birthright is funny, frightening, and painfully on point — a debut that turns domestic strife into unforgettable cinema.
Reviewed @ouchmagazine/RM
In her razor-sharp feature debut Birthright, Australian writer-director Zoe Pepper unleashes a wickedly funny and unsettling portrait of family dysfunction that’s as claustrophobic as it is cathartic. What begins as a familiar tale of millennial misfortune — eviction, job loss, a baby on the way — quickly unravels into a surreal, slow-burning war between generations that’s equal parts Hereditary and Meet the Parents, with a generous dose of dark comic venom.
Cory and Jasmine are in a bad spot. With no money, no home, and a baby on the horizon, their only option is to move in with Cory’s estranged parents: the domineering Richard and the frosty Lyn. What seems like a temporary setback quickly turns into an emotional minefield as buried resentments and barely concealed judgment bubble to the surface. The longer the couple stays, the more twisted the dynamic becomes — and it’s not long before discomfort turns into full-blown psychological warfare.
Pepper walks a brilliant tonal tightrope, blending biting satire with moments of genuine dread. The humor here is pitch-black, often springing from the painfully relatable — the condescending dinner table remarks, the veiled (and not-so-veiled) criticisms of life choices, the suffocating sense of being infantilized by one’s own parents. Yet Birthright never feels like misery porn; it’s too clever, too stylized, and far too fun for that.
The performances are uniformly strong, with the cast nailing the subtle escalation from passive-aggressive barbs to outright hostility. The film’s standout is the dynamic between the generations — a carefully choreographed dance of control, guilt, and simmering rage. Richard and Lyn aren’t cartoon villains, but terrifyingly plausible parents whose emotional repression and generational privilege feel all too real.
Visually, the film leans into its psychological themes with a sharp, clean aesthetic that slowly becomes more disorienting as tensions rise. The house — a symbol of stability and success — morphs into a pressure cooker, where privacy erodes and control becomes the unspoken currency.
Birthright is more than a family drama with edge — it’s a scathing critique of generational resentment, societal expectations, and the illusion of unconditional love. Pepper’s voice is confident, bold, and deliciously dark, marking her as a filmmaker to watch.
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