Birthday Adjustment Disorder is an independent micro-budget Australian feature film about adjustment and anxiety. Birthday anxiety, status anxiety, life anxiety. Filmed as a fly-on-the-wall in Bondi, it's a dramatised examination of one of the most important issues of our time: mental health.
Seven friends gather to toast a birthday. Among them are a psychologist, psychiatrist, neuroscientist, artist, army veteran and carpenter. All ostensibly happy, cracks in friendships and wine bottles soon appear, revealing an underlying current of deep existential angst. When it’s discovered the date is perilously close to the anniversary of the death of a beloved cousin, the night descends into an exploration of shadow and loss, which threatens to destroy friendships and lives forever.
Produced in the spirit of Mumblecore, using found locations and natural lighting, this funny thought provoking dramady ponders the politics and personalities shaping the contemporary conversation about mental health, wondering if the pursuit of happiness has made us all miserable. With a nod to French New Wave, Birthday Adjustment Disorder embraces the grey in life's black and white, aiming to shine a light on urban isolation and vulnerability through a prism of authenticity, friendship, forgiveness and love.