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BIRTH Send This Review to a Friend
Even in a film with a story as dumb as this one Nicole Kidman manages to show what a fine actress she is. Kidman almost makes one believe at the most ridiculous of moments.
She’s also brave even to attempt as idiotic a role as the one she manages in “Birth,” directed by Jonathan Glazer from a screenplay he co-wrote with John-Claude Carrière and Milo Addica.
Here’s the deal. Anna (Kidman) is still thrown by the sudden death of her beloved husband even though 10 years later she is about to re-marry. Suddenly a 10-year-old boy named Sean (Cameron Bright) turns up and says he is her late husband Sean. It seems absurd, but the boy knows a lot about her and Anna is so screwed up that, after initially laughing at the idea, begins to accept the kid, who moves into the house.
The screenwriters provide a conversation in which he says he can meet his marital responsibilities, including guess what, and they even manage to get the boy into a bathtub with Anna, who asks what he’s doing there. “Looking at my wife,” the boy replies with a straight face. Getting Kidman in a tub with a boy is hardly a scene you forget. There’s also a love-making scene in the sack between Anna and Joseph (Danny Huston), Anna’s intended. Joseph has a raging scene in which he wants to kick the kid out bodily. Lauren Bacall plays Anna’s coldly disapproving mother.
We’re clued into what may be up when we see the boy following a woman into a concealed area of Central Park as she buries a mysterious package that she hesitates to deliver to Anna at an engagement party she’s about to attend.
By the time the story unravels, we know what’s been going on. But it is absurd getting there, except for the opportunity to watch the wonderful Kidman giving her all as if she believes every minute of this claptrap. A Fine Line Features release.
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