The main problem with "Birthday Girl" is that it can't decide whether it's a black comedy or a drama. If I'd been editing it, I'd have lost all the "comedy" performances from the likes of Stephen Mangan, Sally Phillips and Alexander Armstrong. The incidental elements of comedy in "Birthday Girl" are well done but the bank scenes are patently false and appear to have been pasted in from another movie.
Another problem is La Kidman. You can see the Acting Gears churning in every scene she appears in, until it's revealed that she's not really a mail-order Russian bride. Well, I'd sort of guessed that as soon as she turned up at the airport. La Kidman has now reached a stage in her career where she takes her craft very seriously and the result in "Birthday Girl" is that her character is transparent. Kidman acts like a Russian woman who is pretending to be a mail-order bride and you can see her doing it.
Fortunately La Kidman's uber-Streep performance is counterbalanced by Ben Chaplin, who plays repressed bank clerk John very sympathetically. Vincent Cassel and Mathieu Kassovitz also turn in good performances as Russian con artists and there are a few UK comedy actors who acquit themselves well in minor roles elsewhere in the film.
Ignore the forced attempts at comedy and you'll enjoy "Birthday Girl".
Another problem is La Kidman. You can see the Acting Gears churning in every scene she appears in, until it's revealed that she's not really a mail-order Russian bride. Well, I'd sort of guessed that as soon as she turned up at the airport. La Kidman has now reached a stage in her career where she takes her craft very seriously and the result in "Birthday Girl" is that her character is transparent. Kidman acts like a Russian woman who is pretending to be a mail-order bride and you can see her doing it.
Fortunately La Kidman's uber-Streep performance is counterbalanced by Ben Chaplin, who plays repressed bank clerk John very sympathetically. Vincent Cassel and Mathieu Kassovitz also turn in good performances as Russian con artists and there are a few UK comedy actors who acquit themselves well in minor roles elsewhere in the film.
Ignore the forced attempts at comedy and you'll enjoy "Birthday Girl".