Birthday Girl Review
by David N. Butterworth (dnb AT dca DOT net)February 7th, 2002
BIRTHDAY GIRL
A film review by David N. Butterworth
Copyright 2002 David N. Butterworth
*** (out of ****)
Since their split exactly one year ago, Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman have gone
their wildly separate ways both on- and off-screen especially (as far as their
careers are concerned) in terms of work rate and exposure.
Tom hasn't had much to say for himself (a leading role in the recent "Vanilla
Sky" excepted) yet Nicole has impressed in "The Others" (earning a Golden Globe
nomination), "Moulin Rouge" (winning a Golden Globe in the "Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy" category), and now "Birthday
Girl," in which the we-forget-she's Australian actress turns in yet another strong performance as a Russian mail-order bride with Meryl Streep accents.
Actually, that's a Russian Internet-order bride, since Kidman's character is
picked up off the web by a mild-mannered bank clerk through a permanent matchmaking
service known as "From Russia With Love" (here's hoping the folks at MGM/Danjaq
don't do a "Goldmember" and start making more zero-tolerance fuss about the sanctity of the James Bond franchise). Ben Chaplin (IMDb trivia note: is *not*
related to Charles Chaplin!) plays the teller, John Buckingham, and is well cast as "the world’s greatest pillock" once it becomes clear that Nadia (Kidman)
is not all she appears to be (and I don't simply mean the fact that she smokes
a lot, vomits a lot, and can't speak a word of English, none of which she bothered
to mention in her online bio).
Anyway, girls are never what they seem when they appear in the credits with
a slash between their name(s).
Shortly after her arrival in the quaint English town of St. Albans, Nadia/Sofia's
"cousins" (played by "Brotherhood of the Wolf"'s Vincent Cassel and "Amélie"'s
Mathieu Kassovitz) show up to celebrate Nadia's birthday (hence the title) and
things get mighty hairy mighty quickly.
What's intriguing about "Birthday Girl" is that it's not your stock Hollywood
product. This is no doubt a direct result of the fact that British director Jez Butterworth (no relation) draws upon the likes of Preston Sturges and Billy
Wilder for his inspiration and not, say, Quentin Tarantino (with whom Butterworth
was compared on the strength of his violent, award-winning 1995 play "Mojo"). No, "Birthday Girl" is a funny, sexy, tense, and generally well-plotted romantic
thriller, never exactly going where you think it might, always serving up something
a little bit out of the ordinary...and you don't have to dig too deeply to find
those afore-referenced directorial influences.
Credit should undoubtedly be bestowed upon the entire Butterworth clan (who
themselves grew up in St. Albans it turns out) and not just Jez (short for Jeremy),
since brother Tom co-wrote the film and brother Steve produced it (a fourth brother, John Henry, helped pen Jez's next work-in-progress while their sister,
a registrar at a London drama school, remains cinematically unattached). In addition to Kidman's artful, centered performance, "Birthday Girl" conjures up several kinky bondage scenarios (Nadia discovers John's hidden stash of whack
mags and tries to make it up to him), some killer twists and turns, and a musical
score punctuated by (believe it or not) Croatian hip-hop!
It's a true "Birthday'" surprise.
--
David N. Butterworth
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Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
