Birthday Girl – Braut auf Bestellung (2001)

Birthday Girl – Braut auf Bestellung: Directed by Jez Butterworth. With Nicole Kidman, Ben Chaplin, Vincent Cassel, Mathieu Kassovitz. A thirtysomething bank clerk from St Albans has his small-town life exploded by the arrival of his Russian mail-order bride.

“John (Ben Chaplin) is a hapless bachelor in St. Albans, looking for love in all the wrong places. So he goes online and orders a Russian mail-order bride. She arrives in the form of Nicole Kidman. Although her background is questionable and her English is fragmented, sheu0026#39;s great in bed, so he has no complaints.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eHowever when her u0026quot;cousinsu0026quot; appear at his door a whole new world of deception and violence opens up for John, pulling him deeper and deeper under.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe premise for the film is fairly good, but the overall execution is just so-so. Nicole Kidman gives a really good performance (worthy of a better film) but Ben Chaplin is just OK. He slaps her around a bit, which is about as daring as his character manages to be. Anyone could play the role, so heu0026#39;s kind of stuck in a rut.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe movie is grungy, dark and feels independent – itu0026#39;s hard to imagine Hollywood royalty Nicole Kidman signing onto it, but she is really the reason this film remains interesting and engaging. Without her, I donu0026#39;t think I would have bothered to sit through all of it.”