Perpetually lonely, decidedly mild-mannered bank clerk John Buckingham (Ben Chaplin) is about to turn his life helter-skelter with a last-ditch attempt at love; ordering a mail order bride straight off the From Russia with Love web site. The result is an offbeat romance that turns unexpectedly into a rollicking comic thriller when his mysterious, chain-smoking "birthday girl" Nadia (Nicole Kidman) arrives in England with a surprise in tow: Yuri (Mathieu Kassovitz) and Alexei (Vincent Cassel) are right behind her.
Special Agent Matti
The set-up. The unexpected romance. The sting. The twist. The co-incidence. The revenge.
Birthday girl is a classic tale of bad girl falls in love with good guy, dragging him into her seamy underworld in a desperate attempt to be happy. Heck, it's even the plot of Stuart Little 2. Nicole Kidman's Nadia is sexy and sultry, playing perfectly off Ben Chaplin's uptight bank clerk. Bank clerk. Who would think of making a bank clerk the hero of a romantic crime thriller black comedy?
Well, the Butterworths, obviously.
Anyhoo, even though Birthday girl is on the lighter side of thrilling and the more obvious side of romance (not to mention the amateur side of crime) it's still an entertaining film, mostly due to the comedy writing of Tom and Jez. Their never-ending stream of bitter British one-liners is like an excerpt from the master himself, Mr O Wilde.
If you're looking for a flick that's not too challenging but still entertaining, Birthday girl is the one for you.
M (Medium level violence, medium level sex scenes, low level coarse language)
93 minutes (1:33 hours)
Film: 8 August 2002
DVD rental: 29 January 2003
VHS rental: 29 January 2003
