I married a Russian mail-order bride

>> Romance goes awry in Birthday Girl

by MATTHEW HAYS

Nicole Kidman’s omnipresence makes her a prime candidate for overkill. Think Robin Williams. Or Helen Hunt. Sometimes too many movies recalls that old saw about absence making the heart grow fonder.
And yes, she was great in The Others. And she was solid in Moulin Rouge (though really, what is the fuss over this movie? It doesn’t deserve quite as many accolades as it’s been getting).

But in Birthday Girl, Kidman has cleverly chosen a role which showcases her talents while delivering something fairly fresh and novel. The film opens with Ben Chaplin, a British bachelor clearly bored by his bank-exec job, surfing the ’Net for mail-order brides. Meeting the woman of his dreams clearly hasn’t been so easy for this fellow, and the Russian service offering various women companions looks too good to be true.

Who could complain if she shows up looking like Nicole Kidman? Still, it appears there is reason to whine as, unlike the promise on the packaging, Kidman’s character doesn’t speak one word of English. She simply repeats “yes” to everything Chaplin asks. There are some nice (and naughty) bits of business between the two as they negotiate a relationship of intimacy. It’s pretty funny when Kidman discovers Chaplin’s porn stash and indicates she’s up for some experimenting. Oh, those Russians! Kidman will probably get most of the kudos for getting the language down and all (she’s quite convincing), Chaplin also deserves praise for breathing some life into that tired old yuppie cliché (the one Meg Ryan and Michelle Pfeiffer do so poorly in Kate & Leopold and I Am Sam respectively).

Things get worse when two of Kidman’s buddies (played to a T by Vincent Cassel and Mathieu Kassovitz) from the old country show up. They’re loud, obnoxious, Vodka-swillers, and though one of them speaks more English than Kidman does, that’s not saying much. Chaplin wants them gone, but it’s unclear precisely how he’s going to get rid of them.
Like Jonathan Demme’s excellent Something Wild, Birthday Girl is soon taking plot back-flips that shouldn’t be given away under any circumstances. Suffice it to say that this is not, thank Christ, a dimwitted romantic comedy along the lines of Kate & Leopold.

While the filmmakers have taken some risks, audiences be warned, Birthday Girl also requires a Zeppelin-sized suspension of disbelief. It ain’t quite time-travel romance, but it’s borderline. The plot twists are fun and Birthday Girl kept me interested (and guessing) until the final credits (and that’s quite something for a movie these days). Just wish the filmmakers had kept credulity a priority right up until then, and the film would have been driven up one more notch. :

The Birthday Girl opens Friday, Feb. 1