30 Second Bottom Line: A bored and staid bank clerk gets the surprise of his life when he tries to spice things up by having "love" sent via the Internet.
Story Line: John (Ben Chaplin) is a lonely thirty-something man who is slooowly moving his way up the corporate ladder at his bank. He lives in a small British town where the odds of finding more than one good mate in your lifetime are not good. Deciding that the Internet might be the source of his salvation, he orders a mail order bride by the name of Nadia (Nicole Kidman) from Russia. When she arrives she pretends to not speak English and each time that John is ready to send her packing, she turns up the sex machine an extra notch, and he thinks with the brain in the external organ hanging between his legs rather than the one on top of his neck.
John buys Nadia a dictionary to translate Russian words to English and by her birthday, she can say the word well enough to merit a cake with candles. Interrupting the party are her "cousins" Yuri and Alexei who also are immigrating to England. It does not take long for them to overstay their welcome and when John is ready to put them out, they threaten to kill Nadia unless he steals money from his bank. He does something he thought he never would do and the story goes in directions which Nadia and John would never have envisioned.
Tell Me More About It: Without someone with the talents of Nicole Kidman, Birthday Girl would have been a total bust. The plot is hard to take because it tries to be serious on some matters that have you saying "come on" right before something humorous is done which means you are almost ready to laugh but not quite. I had trouble figuring out what the movie was trying to be….a love story, crime caper, con game, thriller, etc. Actually it was all of those things and more which caused it to not have a real focus.
Although I can't recommend the film, I don't have awful things to say about it. If you are a Nicole Kidman fan, it's worth the price of admission and two hours out of your life to look and listen to what is before you. It's about as logical as The Mexican, but not quite as much fun. One thing it does do on a serious note is give you an idea of how lucky you are if your personal life is what you want and you did not have to take a chance on a mail order lover to make it happen.
DVD