Birthday Girl Review by Tim (2.5 Stars)

Birthday Girl Review by Tim (2.5 Stars) | MatchFlick

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Movie Details

All Movie Info

Starring:
Nicole Kidman, Ben Chaplin, Vincent Cassel, Mathieu Kassovitz, Kate Evans

Directed By:
Jez Butterworth

Written By:
Jez Butterworth, Tom Butterworth, Tom Butterworth

Birthday Girl (2002)

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Movie Review by Tim

May 13th, 2008

Mail Order Brides....HMMMMM

Favorite Movie Quote: "Well, Nadia, if it's all the same to you, I'd like to give it a bash."

Birthday Girl starts off with the possibility of being a great film. You find an average make banker who has little time in his life to find love. He is lonely and decides to order a bride from Russia. Nicole Kidman arrives and when he picks her up from the airport he realizes on the way home that she does not speak English, which creates a problem since the letters that he had been receiving from her before were written in English and he does not want a bride that cant communicate with him.

Here is where it went wrong. This could have made a great drama and that's it....not this drama / comedy / whatever other genre they tried to squeeze in. The film then turns into a "fool the main character" type of robbery in which Kidman ends up being in on but here is my better version of this film.

Kidman and Chaplin are forced to live together even though Chaplin doesn't want her there. They hate each other, she is miserable and he treats her like dirt. Then over time one night he is eating dinner and starts to choke and she helps him by giving him the heimlich to save his life. So he breaks a little and starts actually trying to teach her his culture. Well of course over time they start having sex, start socializing and eventually fall in love. Just when things seem great he learns that she has some rare deadly disease that only Russians can get from drinking too much cheap vodka and she ends up dying.

See how much better that sounds.

I liked the parts where anytime she thought he was truly about to get rid of her, she automatically was smart enough to know that if she had sex with him or did other sexual acts that he wouldn't make her leave....sex is a universal language and it was nice to see the director make note of that.

Other then my version, the version available to the public is average and probably only worth watching once. I will say that Kidman's Russian accent was very authentic and she was wonderful as always.

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	brian Jul 10, 2008 9:41 AM
hmm, i saw this once at a midnite screening back in the day when a friend worked at the local multiplex. i think it was either this one or fear dot com. birthday girl had some potential & i think it could have been better if they'd spent more time developing the overall plot. nicole kidman is one of my favorite actresses so naturally i'll watch just about anything she makes but this wasnt an overall great film. i think 2 and a half stars is fair if not generous rating. girl has it's greatness in fleeting moments & i agree wholeheartedly that nicole's russian accent is really quite seductive which may have been the main reason for watching the film in it's entirety.

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