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BIRTHDAY
GIRL
7/10
UK
(UK/USA) 2002 : Jez Butterworth : 90 mins
Entertainingly unpredictable blend of comedy, romance, drama and thriller sees
mousy bank-clerk John (Ben Chaplin) getting much more than he bargained
for after ordering a ‘mail-order bride’ via the internet. Russian beauty
Nadia (Nicole Kidman) arrives speaking very little English, and is soon
is joined by her boisterous pals Alexei (an alarmingly physical, kickboxing
Vincent Cassel) and Yuri (Mathieu Kassovitz). Tensions mount in John’s
quiet suburban cul-de-sac and Yuri’s violent temper gets out of hand.
He takes Nadia hostage, forcing John to rob his own bank – but this is
only the start of his problems…
Butterworth’s script (co-written with brother Tom) is a sharp, economical and
unusually ambitious. Though essentially a miniature with only four real
characters, Birthday Girl combines genres with engaging abandon,
nimbly switching gear as the plot’s convolutions rapidly unfold. As well
as an American Beauty
-style attack on the deadening corporate culture epitomised by John’s
bank, the film can be interpreted as his escapist daydream: John’s desire
for danger and adventure is signalled by his mild masochistic tendencies,
and it’s a telling detail that at one stage he’s beaten unconscious and
left tied to a radiator.
All four actors have a lot of fun with the characters and their development:
real-life best pals Kassovitz and Cassel audaciously dice with vodka-swilling
stereotypes as the scheming Russians, while Chaplin and Kidman (though
arguably too photogenic for their roles) convincingly chart the various
stages in John and Nadia’s extremely stormy relationship. This makes the
plot’s final twist especially satisfying, even if it does strain credibility
more than a little. Birthday Girl has by this point built up a
big enough store of engagingly idiosyncratic and amusing touches to keep
audiences on-side: watch for Butterworth wittily and unobtrusively makes
the view from John’s garden recall the Russian farm-vista in Tarkovsky’s
Mirror. And when
was the last time you saw a film in which characters actually walk
all the way to an airport?
28th September, 2002
(seen 14th June, UCI Silverlink, North Shields)
by Neil
Young
Buy Birthday
Girl on DVD
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