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Kidman blows out candles
By Teresa Dickert
Staff Writer
These days you can purchase anything online; a new house, new furniture, a new wardrobe, and even a wife. Wait, a wife? Yes, in the new Miramax picture "Birthday Girl," the protagonist John Buckingham (Ben Chaplin) orders his Russian bride Nadia (Nicole Kidman) via an online site. With little more to go on than a picture and her self-description, which includes "tall, speaks English, and is a non-smoker," John is on his way to pick her up at the airport.
John, a bank teller of many years in a small British town, seems excited yet leery of meeting his mail-order bride, and is seen uneasily searching for Nadia. Tall, as her self-description stated, she is, but the rest he soon becomes aware may be untrue. The drive back to John's home proves eventful when she answers, "Yes" to the questions he poses, including, "Are you a giraffe?" Not quite the welcome he was hoping for, she also throws up out his car window.
After a few days of hasty non-discussion and snooping in each other's property, Nadia's supposed "cousins," Alexei (Vincent Cassel) and Yuri (Mathieu Kassovitzun), expectedly stop by from Russia to celebrate Nadia's birthday. This is the beginning of much confusion of affairs and matters of the heart for John, when he eventually realizes the two are there for more than some vodka and cake.
The plot twists and turns while leading the viewer through the adventure of John's life, and a love story similar to those before it.
Though not a terrible movie, there wasn't anything truly unique about it. I found it cute for its semi-dark nature, but also very predictable and sluggish at times. With greater character build up, I may have been more entertained.
For what it is worth, Nicole Kidman's part is a good breakup from her previous Oscar-nominated roles in "Moulin Rouge" and "The Others," and her Russian accent isn't half-bad either.
