Willem Dafoe brings star wattage to this watchable drama, playing brooding Greek plutocrat and alpha-patriarch Marcos Timoleon, transparently based on Aristotle Onassis: gazing impassively at people through his heavy glasses, doting menacingly on his dependents and given to exercising in the nude in front of the servants. Spanish film-maker Miguel Ángel Jiménez directs and co-writes this adaptation of the novel by Panos Karnezis.
Bringing star power also is charismatic Danish star Vic Carmen Sonne; she plays his daughter Sofia, who has the honour and the terrible burden of a massive 25th birthday party thrown for her by the overbearing Marcos on his private island. The guest list consists almost entirely of his heavily tanned Eurotrash acquaintances and hangers-on, but this claustrophobic party is all the more painful as (like Onassis) Timoleon has recently suffered the terrible anguish of his son and favourite child dying in a plane accident.
