Film Review: BIRTHDAY GIRL
Reviewed by Kayt

Release Date: February 1, 2002
Starring:
Nadia: Nicole Kidman
John Buckingham: Ben Chaplin
Alexei: Vincent Cassel
Yuri: Mathieu Kassovitz
Bank Manager: Stephen Mangan
Miramax presents a film directed by Jez Butterworth. Written by Jez Butterworth and Tom Butterworth.
Running time: 93 minutes. Rated R (for sexuality and language).

Being somewhat behind on my movie viewing, I recently saw Birthday Girl for the first time on DVD. This is a movie about a clever but life-altering crime perpetrated by three Russians, portrayed by the Australian Kidman and two male French actors, all of whom speak a lot of Russian and generate a lot of subtitles for those of us who are hopelessly American and don’t understand much of anything but English. Since I’m included in that “hopelessly American” category, I can’t comment on the quality of these non-Russian actors’ command of Russian or their accents, but it sounded passable to me, a person who loves the sound of the Russian language even though I only understand about ten words. Now fair warning, Russians aren’t showcased in the best light in this film, similarly to how Italians aren’t exactly made out to be pillars of society in Mafia films or the richness of Asian culture isn’t a part of most kung fu movies (actually I’ve never seen a kung fu movie, but I’m guessing they’re not exactly like “The Joy Luck Club,” a film you probably should check out if you want to see an example of the richness of Asian culture). But suffice to say that the film viewing public, on the whole, is capable of understanding the concept of one, or in this case, three, bad Russian apples not spoiling the whole bunch.

My other bone to pick involves the casting of non-Russian actors in this film, although Nicole Kidman is an excellent actress and they dyed her red hair dark for the occasion. (Are Russians not allowed to have red hair? Someone we know will be crushed!). She still doesn’t look especially Russian to me, but she conveys a lot of emotion with her eyes. Isn’t the beautiful actress Milla Jovovich Russian? Even if not, she’s a lot closer to it than Kidman. I remember Jovovich from “My Bodyguard,” in which she played a Russian girl from a family of circus performers, and in the wonderful sci-fi film “The Fifth Element,” and I wonder what she could have done with the role of “Nadia” in Birthday Girl. And what is up with French actors playing Russians? They were convincing, in my opinion, but French? Mais non! At least the actors playing Brits seemed to be British, although I confess I haven’t checked that out thoroughly. It doesn’t detract from the film all that much, but I happen to think authenticity is a nice touch sometimes. But then, the people in charge of making this film probably felt Kidman was a better “box office” draw, and I’m not faulting her acting abilities and efforts at speaking Russian. She did a nice job. I’m only suggesting that the film may have gained a little more credibility with Russian actors in it.

The film opens by giving us a look into the lonely and rather mundane life of John, a British bank teller who turns to an email-order bride website, From Russia With Love (.com), to find a wife. The women are profiled on the site with photos and bios and with a click their future husbands can listen to them speak about themselves (“My name is Alexandra, I like candlelight dinners and long walks on the beach …”). He soon finds Nadia (Kidman) and chooses her. At Heathrow airport when he goes to meet her plane, he doesn’t find her right away and as the stream of deplaning passengers dwindles it appears he may have been internationally stood up. But then he sees a tall, mysterious looking woman, watching him with eyes that take in everything, from across the now near empty terminal.

In the car on the way home, he begins to figure out that Nadia may not exactly be the woman of his dreams as he attempts to converse with her. She answers each question with a breathless “yes” and he soon realizes she does not speak English as promised on the website. She further fails to endear herself to him by smoking and later throwing up out of the car window. When they arrive at John’s house, he tries to call the email bride service to complain – “I was told she spoke English!” - but reaches only a voicemail system. Not to seem unreasonable here, but is it too much to imagine that, in keeping with the spirit of things, when a man commits himself, and presumably, his credit card, to ordering a bride from a country with a language radically different from his own he might make the effort to learn at least a few words of his intended bride’s language? Maybe he could have taught himself a few words and phrases such as “good morning,” “yes,” “no,” “what would you like for breakfast?” or “kiss me, you crazy fool!” Well, maybe that last one is expecting a little too much, but still…meet the poor girl halfway, that’s all I’m saying. Meanwhile, their strained efforts at communication persist, and he gives her a present, a Russian-English dictionary that she pretends to like. How romantic. They could have held hands in Berlitz class.

Soon though, speaking of romance, the Universal Language of Love – yep, sex and lots of it – kicks in as Nadia practically forces herself (at first, but he soon becomes more willing) on John to gain his trust and love, not to mention to quash any remaining thoughts of him exchanging her for a more language-friendly bride. Things really heat up after Nadia goes through John’s things and finds his stash of porn magazines and bondage videos under his bed and brings his kinky fantasies to life for him. Don’t worry, it’s not all gratuitous and she’s not just a sex-addicted Russian slut (every Cosmonaut’s dream, right?); she’s doing this for a reason and there’s a method to her sluttishness, as we soon find out.

One day when John comes home he finds that Nadia has learned two new English words, “birthday” and “party.” (What, you were expecting words like “Do it to me one more time” or “Oops, I did it again?”). Now we all know, more than the general population, how much fun-loving Russians like to party, so that’s understandable. Since he has grown quite fond of her he makes her a little impromptu birthday party for two. But soon the doorbell rings and it becomes a party of four as Nadia squealingly welcomes her two Russian male “cousins,” Alexei and Yuri. Fortunately, one of them speaks English and we don’t have to read so many subtitles during their party conversation, except when the three Russians speak to each other. (Which brings to mind how handy it would be if white subtitles were to appear in the air whenever Our Favorite Bandmembers speak Russian…not to mention how surreal that would be. But that has nothing to do with this film because, unfortunately, Nadia, Alexei and Yuri don’t attend any concerts after reuniting, so Red Elvises are not in this film, which is too bad).

From there things get more involved and start to spell disaster for poor smitten John, but if I tell you any more it will give it away and spoil it for you. I will tell you though, that most of the suspense revolves around trying to figure out (1) what the three Russians are up to and what they will do next, (2) how accurately the subtitles match the actual spoken Russian words, and (3) whether or not John will at some point develop a personality. He seems to be a man of deep emotions but with most of them safely hidden beneath the surface.

This story could conceivably have worked with just about any nationality, from Lithuanians to Martians (had it been a science fiction tale), but for whatever reason the writer chose to make his protagonist British and his antagonists Russian. At its most basic level, it is a story of technology teaming up with affairs of the heart to introduce a new vulnerability; those who turn to computers to find mates must place their trust, and ultimately their hearts, in the electronic vortex that is the World Wide Web, and in this age in which we live there are always others who see ways to take advantage and infiltrate the system to serve their own purposes. The film asks us to understand and have compassion for this vulnerability, coupled with a certain amount of naivete and personified in a lead male character who apparently believes ordering an email-order bride via the Internet should be a simple, cut and dried project, much like ordering a book or a CD, yet we have to wonder if he even had a stray thought about the human consequences of what he was doing. He certainly didn’t seem prepared to cope with the possibility of false advertising at the least, or with the simple fact that people, from any country, have human characteristics and flaws and cannot reasonably be expected to conform exactly to one’s imagined ideal. I think it would have been easier to feel more compassion for him had he taken a more human approach to his quest for a wife and not acted as if he expected to receive a cardboard stand-up woman who exactly fulfilled his every specification.

But on a less lofty level…does it have a happy ending? You’ll just have to see it and decide for yourself. I felt it did leave me wanting to know what happened to the characters next, although it doesn’t really seem like the type of film to lend itself to a sequel. So for a relatively cheap and mostly harmless evening’s entertainment when you have no Red Elvises concert to go to, you can rent Birthday Girl and amuse yourself watching an Australian actress with a French first name acting Russian. I won’t say it’s the greatest or the worst film I’ve ever seen but it does move along at an interest-holding pace once Alexei and Yuri arrive. I actually preferred Kidman in “Moulin Rouge” where she plays a French girl and sings, but if a film with three Russian characters and a bit of international intrigue appeals to you, this one is sufficiently entertaining, especially if you’re a fan of internationally talented Nicole Kidman. It could also provide you with something to think twice about the next time you decide to order an unknown human being through the Internet.