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Birthday Girl (Widescreen) (Dual-layered DVD)
- Starring: Nicole Kidman, Ben Chaplin, Vincent Cassel
- Director: Piers Thompson, Jez Butterworth
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Description
A man looking for love gets more than he bargained for when he chooses his prospective wife on the internet in this dark comedy. The manager of a bank in a small British community (Ben Chaplin) decides that he's in need of long-term companionship, and through an on-line marriage broker called From Russia With Love, he obtains a "mail order" bride (Nicole Kidman). While he's more than pleased that his new fiancée is so beautiful, she turns out to have a dangerous and mysterious side that he wasn't counting on, and things become quite complicated when two of her cousins (Vincent Cassel and Mathieu Kassovitz) arrive from Russia and move into his tiny house in St. Albans. Though set in England, Birthday Girl was actually shot in Australia, which allowed leading lady Nicole Kidman to stay in touch with her then- husband, Tom Cruise, who was shooting Mission: Impossible II in Australia at the same time. Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Features
- Genre: Comedy Drama
- Category: Black Comedy, Crime Drama, Romantic Comedy
- Theme: Arranged Marriages, Cons and Scams, Femmes Fatales, Haunted By the Past
- Release Date: August 13, 2002
- Rating: R (Restricted)Rating Opens in New Window - Adult Humor, Adult Situations, Not For Children, Profanity, Sexual Situations, Violence
- Studio: Miramax
- Lead Actors: Nicole Kidman, Ben Chaplin, Vincent Cassel, Mathieu Kassovitz, Kate Evans
- Supporting Actors: Jo McInnes, Xander Armstrong, Sue Maund, David Mark, Katya Barton-Chapple, Raj Ghatak, Steve Pemberton, Reece Shearsmith, Jonathan Aris, Jack Pierce, Rebecca Clarke, J.J. Toba, Sally Phillips, Ben Miller, Mark Gatiss, Stephen Mangan, Alan Stocks
- Director: Piers Thompson, Jez Butterworth
- Picture Format: Widescreen
- Run Time: 1 hr 30 min
- Language: English, French
- Subtitle Language: Spanish
- Format: DVD
Additional Information
- DPCI: 246-03-5975
- ASIN: B002NBOJTC
- Catalog #: 11559119
- Item can not be gift wrapped.
Shipping & Policies
- You may return this item to any Target store.Opens in New Window
- Shipping & Delivery InformationOpens in New Window
- Estimated Ship Dimensions : 7.39 inches length x 5.34 inches width x 0.57 inches height
- Estimated Ship Weight: 0.22 pound.
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Expert Reviews
This long-on-the-shelf feature finally earned a release slot thanks to the stellar performance of two other Nicole Kidman star vehicles, Moulin Rouge (2001) and The Others (2001). That's usually an indication of serious problems with the finished product, and indeed the sophomore film from playwright Jez Butterworth feels like a heavily edited, chopped-up affair, as if it has been repeatedly mauled by censors, studio executives, or some other authoritative figure lacking confidence in its quirky tone. Birthday Girl (2002) is not a disaster, however. At heart it's a dark romantic comedy and often a fairly solid one to boot; it simply verges too many times into thriller territory, deviating too much from its sense of self. Becoming increasingly absurd and pinwheeling back and forth between a delightfully larcenous loopiness and unwelcome attempts at evoking real menace, the film stumbles badly in its second half until wrapping up with a botch of an act three that moves the characters woodenly and without much purpose from point A to point B (the woods, then the airport, then a hotel conveniently nearby, then back to the airport). The writers simply haven't taken the time to spin their splendid little premise and characters someplace truly interesting. Either that, or those dreaded test audience responses (where do they get these people?) have dictated a reshot finale that is a dumbed-down bore. Kidman continues to be a revelation, even in a film that will likely be seen as a footnote to her banner year as an actress. There's much to like in the setup of Butterworth's film, but its payoff is too slim and he's working from a script (co-written with his brother Tom Butterworth) that hasn't yet figured out what sort of film it really is. Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
