Birthday Girl | | Cast : | Nicole Kidman, Vincent Cassel | | Director : | Jez Butterworth | | Studio : | Buena Vista Home Vid | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen, Dolby | | Released Date : | February 01, 2002 | | DVD Released Date : | January 25, 2005 | | Language : | English (Dubbed), English (Original Language) | | Audience Rating : | R (Restricted) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | June 23, 2005 | | Summary | We can all learn a lesson from this film? | Content
 | I lauged a lot during the course of this film. Sure, it was not the same caliber as other Dark Comedies such as; American Beauty. However, I found Nichole Kidman's portrayal of Sophia, AKA: Nadia refreshing. Kidman always seems to have roles that showcase her allure, sensuality and raw sex appeal. Seeing a more comedic side of Kidman was very enjoyable. This film had impressed me because we have characters that may not be very sophisticated on one hand. However, let us focus on the positive things. A fairly beneign, mellow and mudane beginning resembling the beginning moments during of Joe Versus The Volcanoe fills the audience with a sense of hopelessness that succintly depicts, quite accurately I might add, the hopeless and plight of one of our main characters, John whom is not very extraordinary in any sense. A seemingly boring, routine and maybe even pathetic life in the day of John played by (Ben Chaplin) shows the audience a typical day in John's life, not unlike many people in our everyday life. Fighting the dull drums of John's boring career as a bank teller, boring home life with nothing extraordinary at all to speak of during the first minutes of the movie, introduce mail order bride: Nadia played by (Nichole Kidman). John's life quickly transforms into a life that is anything but boring. John whom was anything but exciting pulls off some hilarious antics during parts of the movie. In dealing with Kidman/Nadia's supposed Cousins whom arrive without warning to help celebrate her Birthday, Chaplin and Kidman manage to pull of some hillarious physical comedy during parts of the movie. Some of the facial expressions made by Kidman and Chaplin me laugh on their own merit. It is important to look at the qualities each actor or actress has brought to life in their character. Is this one of those classics that was overlooked at the boxoffice? Not likely. Is it potentially a cult classic? Possibly. Although the cast was well accomplised overall in previous and subsequent movies, this light hearted comedy with dark undertones was funny enough that I had watched it a second time. Why? Because albeit, not a performance that was so breathtaking and mindblowing overall that I became addicted to it like a narcotic drug, this movie showcases and highlights something that I think we have overlooked. Rather than outlandish, over exaggerated physical actions and skits, excessive violence or over emphasis of sophisticated, computer generated animation and special effects, a lighter, less sophisticated approach to comedy was achieved. Getting back to basics one might say. Sure, one can clamour for a more sophisticated plot, more thorough character developement, more of this or more of that. Bottom line, if you enjoy British style humor with darker undertones, you will enjoy "Birthday Girl". This was a refreshing change of pace when compared to our new wave crop of girl power comedies, action adventure movies relying upon gobs of computer generated special effects, reality TV series which I might add are overdone, as well. In this case, more is not better. Instead of over emphasizing many minute details to the point of being a busy collage of big things, shoddily connected together in a disjointed fashion, this movie highlights the simple concept of comedy, presented in a more basic form, presented in a tasteful and digestable format. Not too heavy, not too sophisticated or complex. My impression of comedies in the past is that they are not suppose to be so complex that one needs an expert diagnosis from stem to stern in order to enjoy the finished product. Birthday Girl has many issues and messages throughout the movie that could have sidetracked the audience and taken them into a direction that would have served little purpose except to maybe gratify the obsessive compulsive person's desire to neatly compartmentalize, categorize and label each individual for for further analysis. Use your imagination, relax, watch, laugh and enjoy the movie. Quite nit picking and get back to basics. Watch this movie and have a few laughs. |
| Rating | | | Date | May 31, 2005 | | Summary | eventually derails, but fun while it lasts | Content
| I'll start out with saying that all of the actors have done better films than this one, and in comparison their acting here is rather disappointing, but that's more a fault of under-developed characters than lack of talent. The Birthday Girl seems to try for something darker than it actually becomes and it looks like all the actors are just moonlighting.
John (Chaplin), a lonely bank teller, orders a mail order bride (Kidman) from Russia, only to discover when she gets here that she doesn't speak a word of English and isn't what she seems. Mayhem ensues when two of her friends come for her birthday. And although the idea of a Russian mail order bride may seem like a great idea on paper, the execution of it in this film disappoints.
The first half of the film is quite entertaining, as Ben Chaplin proves to be quite adept at walking the fine line between black comedy and pathos. We like his character even if we're particularly impressed by him. The monotony of his life is portrayed humorously if not particularly inventively. But he and Kidman don't have the combustible chemistry that the film requires, you can see them as friends but not anything else. Still they have enough to keep the film going until it derails with the arrival of Vincent Cassel and mattieu kassovitz. Their characters are caricatures and serve very little narrative purpose but there they are ruining the second half of the film. Birthay Girl is mostly forgettable, except for perhaps the scenes at the bank where John works which are very funny.
*I gave this film 4 stars because of the robbie williams music video included, otherwise a 3/ |
| Rating | | | Date | May 13, 2005 | | Summary | BLOW OUT THE CANDLES | Content
| While I usually find Nicole Kidman's performances impeccably done, BIRTHDAY GIRL only demonstrates she can learn Russian and make a stinker of a film at the same time. The problem with BIRTHDAY GIRL is how it sanitizes a criminal, and tries to make us think "Oh, well, now she's changed, she's not so bad after all." Never mind the fact of how many lives she's ruined, and how she leads Ben Chaplin's character into robbing his bank, and basically ruining his life. That's okay, but Chaplin didn't really have much of a life? Come on, I get tired of writers and moviemakers trying to make criminal life so attractive and then cleaning it up by making the flapless Kidman fall in love with the pretty gullible and stupid Chaplin. I really can't find much to recommend with this movie, and Kidman should keep it off her resume. |
| Rating | | | Date | May 02, 2005 | | Summary | Ok movie, not as good as it could have been | Content
| 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). |
| Rating | | | Date | March 31, 2005 | | Summary | Has its moments. | Content
| Birthday Girl (Jez Butterworth, 2001)
Butterworth's second feature film put together an exceptional cast, made the stupid in the extreme, and then dropped them all in a plot that makes swiss cheese look solid.
John (Murder by Numbers' Ben Chaplin, who should regain his cred with the star-studded Chromophobia later this year) is a bank teller looking for love. He finds it in the form of Russian mail-order bride Nadia (Nicole Kidman), at least until her cousin Yuri (Amelie's Matthieu Kassovitz) and his travelling partner Alexei (Vincent Cassel, recently in Irreversible) show up. Things get very ugly from there, though to explain how would start a chain of spoilers that would lead to you not having to see the movie.
And despite its many problems (and they are legion, the main one being why it takes John so incredibly long to make the obvious choice), Birthday Girl is a film that is at least worth seeing. Butterworth has made a very good-looking film. This will be no surprise to fans of the work of cinematographer Oliver Stapleton, who's worked on such excellent-looking (but similarly flawed) films as The Shipping News, The Van, and The Grifters. And, really, you don't have to be an expert cinematographer to make Nicole Kidman look good anyway. Still, Stapleton's gift makes the film attractive even when Kidman isn't onscreen. The leads, despite the stupidity of their characters, play their roles with vigor (Kassovitz deserves special recognition here), making the best they can of the situation they obviously found themselves in with the script, and the action sequences are wonderfully well-done, understated in a world where "action sequence" has come to equate with "lots of stuff blows up." Butterworth's take on the running guy chasing the speeding car has to be seen to be believed.
There are things to like about this movie, and things not to like about it, but it's still a decent way to turn your brain off for ninety minutes. ** ½ |
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