A shipping magnate throws a party

Willem Dafoe plays a Greek shipping magnate in The Birthday Party, another barbed critique of life among the obscenely rich. Basing his movie on a 2007 novel by Panos Karnezis, writer/director Miguel Angel Jimenez creates a fictionalized view of a character who resembles Aristotle Onassis. Aways adventurous, Dafoe plays Marcos Timoleon, a calculating boss who’s accustomed to controlling everything but who has difficulty corralling his strong-willed daughter, Sofia (Vic Carmen Sonne). Sofia’s latest challenge to her father centers on her plan to marry Ian Forster (Joe Cole), a writer who's working on a biography of Marcos. To further complicate matters, Sofia is pregnant with a child Marcos insists she'll never have. The movie eventually shows the twisted lengths to which Marcos will go to ensure that he prevails. The story begins with a more conventional attempt at persuasion. Marcos arranges an elaborate 25th for Sofia that’s designed to coax her back into the family fold. Hangers-on…