Birthday Girl
Jez Butterworth, Director

Review by Rada Djurica

Directed by Jez Butterworth, "Birthday Girl" tugs you in so many different directions that a likely response from viewers will be to start pushing everything away.

In "Birthday Girl" Nicole Kidman took another risky, but good part. First was a cabaret dancer in "Moulin Rouge" and now it is another demanding role. In Jez Butterworth's second film, our birthday girl is Nadia, a Russian mail order bride with an intriguing past. The most famous Australian actress was not only required to adopt the Russian accent - including numerous lines of Russian dialogue - but also to express a range of emotions (joy, fear, terror).

"Birthday Girl" is an unconventional story of a lonely English bank worker, John Buckingham (Ben Chaplin), who orders the mail order bride, Nadia (Kidman), from the Internet, "From Russia With Love." If you live in a small town and work long hours, you're just not going to get a chance to meet lots of girls, are you? Sounds completely understandable.

After discovering John's stash of pornography, Nadia indulges her husband's fantasies, making him more likely to help her keep her status in the UK. A romantic relationship, coupled with sexual gratification, ultimately leads to an emotional bond.

All this changes when Nadia's Russian "cousins," Yuri (Mathieu Kassovitz) and Alexei (Vincent Cassel), arrive to celebrate her birthday... One thing leads to another. Another surprise, and the cousins attempt to use John for a money fraud. The honour belongs to Nicole Kidman for bringing the film to another happy end. Yes, Nadia and John stay together, gazing into the romantic sunset of the Moscow airport, with maybe love on the sight? Happy ending or not, this film has realistic dialogue, which makes "Birthday Girl" a high class, ambitious thriller. While mainstream audiences, may not appreciate a simultaneously tense and sweet atmosphere from Julia Roberts or Meg Ryan, this film draws dark comedy from the dramatic relations of the flawed lead characters that make this piece a clear and sophisticated mainstream work.