Birthday Girl
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Movie Reviews of Birthday Girl
Movie Review: Thrilling, Humorous, and Fun
Summary: 4 Stars
For the most part the story turns unexpectedly except for the obvious part that John and the woman would end up in liking each other in the end. I was thrilled and entertained by this movie. I find the main characers not only beautiful but also act very well. I see good sense of humor, romance, and thrill in it and find it well blended to make a good entertainment movie.Movie Review: Great!!
Summary: 4 Stars
Very enjoyable movie. Nicole is absolutely hot, and once again, Ben Chaplin has given a stellar performance.Movie Review: Ok movie, not as good as it could have been
Summary: 3 Stars
R-rated movie for "sexuality and language," ~90 mins. long (the nudity is limited to some shots from the back).
The DVD contains a Behind the Scenes Featurette, a Music Video, and the film. The movie stars Nicole Kidman (as Nadia; The Interpreter; The Stepford Wives; Dead Calm), Ben Chaplin (John Buckingham; Murder by Numbers; The Thin Red Line), Vincent Cassel (Alexi; Ocean's Twelve; Shrek), & Mathieu Kassovitz (Yuri; Amen; The Fifth Element). The movie was written by Tom & Jez Butterworth. The director is Jez Butterworth, and my 2004 movie guide notes that this is Butterworh's only movie as director, though IMDb.com notes that Jez is also the director for the 1997 Mojo.
The movie is about Ben Chaplin's character (John Buckingham), a British banker, purchasing a Russian mail-order bride (Nicole Kidman, Nadia) and getting more than he expected, especially when two Russians turn up on Nadia's birthday.
The movie opens somewhat slowly with Buckingham trying to make a web-video and scanning a Russian mail-order bride website (From Russia with Love). Twenty million English girls on his small island but he is from a small town and very busy, so he must look elsewhere. Immediately after the opening sequence, Buckingham picks up Nadia from the airport, and learns quickly that she can't speak much English beyond "Yes" and doesn't understand English either. Buckingham is, understandably, annoyed because he was under the impression that she could speak English, which is important because he doesn't speak Russian. Buckingham attempts to get in touch with the mail-order place and attempts to send back Nadia. Nadia attempts to dissuade his idea through offering her body. While at work, Nadia finds his porn collection, which seems to involve a lot of bondage like activity. When John comes home from work, he gives Nadia a Russian-English dictionary, and Nadia gives him a stack of bondage magazines, then latter begins to tie herself up on the bed (they have "fun" with this type of activity several times). The movie slowly movies forward, time passes, though it is unclear how much time. The movie finally starts to pick up pace again when two Russians show up on Nadia's birthday. Well, I spoke to soon, it still is quite slow. The movie finally picks up after John asks the two Russians to leave and one the Russians goes somewhat insane and gets rough and demands money. The movie turns into a crime drama and continues for some time.
My 2004 Mick Martin & Marsha Porter movie guide gives the movie 3 stars out of 5. I would probably give the movie a similar rating (if for no other reason than because there are too many scenes in Russian without translation, though that might have been my own fault as I turned off the closed caption when the movie started and the closed caption was in Spanish).
Movie Review: off beat, understated drama
Summary: 3 Stars
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.
Movie Review: Why that doesn't surprise me
Summary: 3 Stars
Ben Chaplin plays John, a lonely, socially inept bank teller who gets a mail-order bride, Nadia (Nicole Kidman), off the internet, even though one of his obviously compatible coworkers (Kate Evans) keeps flirting with him.
Nadia can't speak English. John is annoyed and calls the mail-order company wanting a refund, until Nadia communicates with him through the international language of heavy petting and bondage. They talk for quite a while. Still, this makes for difficult conversation at restaurants, so John purchases a Russian to English dictionary, hoping to surprise Nadia with a love letter written in Russian for her birthday.
Unfortunately, he's sidetracked by the arrival of Nadia's boisterous cousins Yuri (Mathieu Kassovitz) and Alexei (Vincent Cassel) who want to celebrate her birthday, too. There's an uneasy tension between John and the cousins that mounts with each scene until Alexei finally explodes at John after he suspects John has inferred something else about his job of smoking meats, when he literally just meant smoked meats.
Spoiler:
The next morning, the two cousins are holding Nadia hostage, with demands that John rob his bank. He's given two bulky guitar cases to fill up with cash. From this point, "The Birthday Girl" grows more and more implausible , starting as John waltzes through the bank, carrying the two cases while most of his supervisors are distracted in a stress-reducing "I'll break your fall" seminar (One person stands behind another coworker who falls backward, trusting to be caught).
Someone finally notices the empty safe, an alarm bell sounds and John's on the run, in his car with Alexei, Nadia, and Yuri. Alexei and Nadia start making out in the backseat and John realizes he's been duped. Turns out, Alexei is Nadia's boyfriend, and they've been running this scam with various desperate saps with big money connections all over Europe. Nadia isn't even her real name. They tie John up in a hotel, and John must figure out how to untie the knots, and get his life back on track. Will John and Nadia get back together? Does she really like him? Will the bad guys get caught? What do you think it takes to build a girl robot? How are your gardening skills?