Birthday Girl

Birthday Girl has a not too bad premise- good old English chum decides out of lonliness and maybe something else to order a mail order bride from Russia. It turns out, his order is not quite what he wanted, but she (Nicole Kidman) seems like a nice enough wife, until not what was planned happens in a series of events getting the english chum and his russian bride on the run. Sometimes amusing, but it is not good enough as a movie since it can never really get into its characters and seems to float for part of the 2nd act and 3rd act. Kidman is still sexy though. C+

Ben Chaplin and Nicole Kidman are great together! The soundtrack is absolutely wonderful! Vincent Cassel is wild, he's always a great actor with range. Wasn't expecting some of the things that occur Birthday Girl is pleasant surprise.

Mild-mannered bachelor bank teller near London advertises for a Russian wife on the internet, and is disappointed when the young lady who shows up at the airport doesn't speak any English (she's a willing sport in bed, however); when two of her Russian buddies show up at his house, the man realizes he's been set up to rob his own bank, yet still feels a connection to this strange, sexy woman. Peculiar, darkly comic series of confusions, double crosses, bedroom fetishes (and ants!) written by the team of Tom and Jez Butterworth (Jez also directed, while Steve Butterworth produced). It was obviously a labor of love for the group, and they could not have found better leads than Nicole Kidman and handsome Ben Chaplin, both excellent in their roles. Still, the script disappoints--it's all over the map--and by the third act we've lost something intrinsic in the characters. Chaplin (who amusingly resembles both Joaquin Phoenix and Steve Carrell) is never humiliated on-screen (he's treated badly but always rebounds and looks after himself); still, the man's anger is released in odd ways (too much slapping) and we never understand his attachment to Kidman's Russian vixen. Is this an emotional connection or is it purely physical? Well-made movie has some fine, prickly moments (mostly in the first hour). It loses itself in its circular twists, swallowing its tail in the bargain, however the film is still a decent attempt at something different. ** from ****

This film would have played better as a romantic comedy. Instead it was neither one thing nor another. All the performances were good, but somehow it missed the mark. More like a satire of an Alfred Hitchcock thriller. The plot was too silly for a thriller, the characters were caricatures and the uptight bank clerk would have gone to the police immediately they demanded cash. As a comedy, they could have got away with a preposterous plot and the equally preposterous ending, but as a thriller, it simply fell flat.

Nicole Kidman can successfully play the sort of girl who could be a real head turner if she didn't dress like trash, combed her hair, got washed, and stopped lighting one cigarette from another. The scenes of her puffing away on a cigarette casually hanging from the side of her mouth were hilarious. She probably substituted flea market perfume for deodorant. The two Russian accomplices were also good, and Ben Chaplin was suitably uptight as the "victim". At first I thought he was too handsome to get a mail order bride, but to have made him a geek would have been too predictable. There are many handsome and successful men who just seem to strike out with the ladies.

Overall, I would rate this OK if you have absolutely nothing better to do.

Roughly one part crime drama to two parts offbeat love story, `Birthday Girl' is a nifty little British film that gives Nicole Kidman a chance to strut her stuff as an actress. Here she gets to play a Russian `mail order bride' (though, of course, in the modern world she is actually ordered off the internet) who's come to England to start a new life with John, a mild-mannered banker unsuccessful in the ways of love. John is one of those bland, utterly undistinguished `good guys' who everyone seems to like but no one seems to notice. Even his boss at the bank gives him one of those noncommittal job evaluations (saying what a swell guy he is and what a great way he has with people) used to fob people off when they are not good enough to merit a raise or a more prestigious position in the corporation. Forced to go the unconventional route in finding himself a wife, John hooks up with the lovely but inscrutable Nadia, a Russian woman who, John is appalled to learn, does not understand a word of English. Then just as John and Nadia seem to be forming a close relationship (literally bonding over bondage), complications arise when two of Nadia's bizarre `friends' from Russia suddenly arrive on the scene.

To reveal more of the plot would be unfair to both the viewer and the makers of this film, since much of the movie's intrigue arises from the frequent turnabouts in the plot itself. Although there is always the threat of violence hammering at the film's edges, writers Tom and Jez Butterworth (the latter serving as the film's director as well), manage to keep the film fairly havoc free while they focus on the developing relationship between the two main characters. Kidman, who speaks nary a word of English in the first half of the film (and only with a heavy accent thereafter), does a beautiful job conveying both the toughness and the vulnerability inherent in this woman. Though innately compassionate, Nadia has had to learn how to survive in a brutal world - even if that means having to exploit naïve, good-natured shmucks like John. As John, Ben Chaplin conveys just the right mixture of shyness, befuddlement and ultimate self-assuredness to make us root for the character. Because of his Everyman characteristics, we want to see John triumph in the end.

`Birthday Girl' doesn't try to push the envelope by indulging in elaborate action scenes or patently theatrical heroics. Its events seem to unravel in a spontaneous, naturalistic manner, which helps the film to remain relatively true to life most of the time. It tells an unusual story, one filled with wry humor, understated suspense and a compassionate recognition of human frailty. Well written and well acted, `Birthday Girl' is an unheralded film that deserves to be seen.