Birthday Girl

John is a shy and lonely bank teller in St Albans who just wants to meet a nice woman. Eventually he turns to a website where he can get Russian brides and he orders one. When he collects Nadia from the airport he finds that she doesn't speak a word of English and he tries to get her "returned". Getting no reply from the telephone number he has, Nadia gradually changes John's mind through sex. Despite the total lack of language, the two seem to be getting on well and John is happy with his new life but, on Nadia's birthday, two of her friends arrive totally unannounced and things take a change for the worse.

This film is listed as being just about every genre possible to select on this site and this highlights one of the problems with the film – it is uneven and doesn't quite settle into any one thing well enough to succeed at it. The mix of romance and comedy pretty much never works and it does take away from what should have been a more effective dramatic plot. The logic in the story pretty much works; perhaps not in real world terms but on its own. It kept moving well enough to keep me watching even if it didn't do anything particularly well – it engaged me although I think I was quite forgiving of it because I wasn't in that demanding a mood.

The cast are better than the material deserves and they are a big part of making it work. Kidman should be applauded for her film roles, certainly they are unusual for such a big star to do as many smaller things as she does. Here she spends most of the film doing an accent but her presence is good regardless and it means we are still interested in her whenever she starts speaking. Chaplin is better because he is grounded in the real world (sort of) and his performance means he more than holds his own opposite the starry leading lady. I generally don't like Cassel but here he was OK and his worked well with Kassovitz to delivered an improved second half where the drama came to the fore. The support cast is strange – not bad but not good either. The presence of Armstrong and Miller is just another example of the uneven tone to the film – the comedians both seem to be trying to inject a small bit of humour by their delivery, but it doesn't work and sticks out a bit like a sore thumb.

Overall this has enough going on to keep you watching but it doesn't do anything that well, producing an uneven affair that only gets a bit better in the second half where the focus appears to settle down. It is never illogical to a detrimental point but it is unconvincing at points. File under D for distracting, because it is watchable as long as you don't expect too much from it.