Birthday Party opens with a young woman preparing a meal for a birthday party. However, she soon begins to exhibit very strange behavior. Is the woman neurotic? Does she have an extreme case of social anxiety? Or is she responding to something terrible that has happened to the outside world? Birthday Party is a puzzle. The opening shot is an image of a globe covered with a black veil, which then transitions to a young woman preparing ingredients to make dumplings. Everything appears normal, until all of a sudden, she utters a single word that tells us all is not well with her. From this point forward, the young woman’s behavior grows more and more perplexing. She looks outside her window and breaks down crying, but is what she sees outside real or imagined? She folds an origami unicorn. Does the unicorn represent how she views herself in relation to others, or is she characterizing her new found situation in light of apocalyptic circumstances? She dances romantically with her plant. Is she trying to drown out the troubles of the world? Is she reminiscing the loss of a lover? Or is she a terribly shy woman fantasizing about a gentlemen caller? These are the questions that form the conundrum that is Birthday Party.