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Birth
New Line Cinema


5.4

based on 38 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 45 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

FILM:

Sexy Beast

MPAA RATING: R for sexuality

Starring Nicole Kidman, Cameron Bright, Danny Huston, Lauren Bacall, Alison Elliott, Arliss Howard, Mike Desautels, and Anne Heche

A metaphysical love story that explores the space between what we know and what we feel. Like many fairy tales, Birth is part romance, part mystery, and part family drama - woven into a magical whole about love, mortality and the unknown. (New Line Cinema)

GENRE(S):	Drama \| Mystery
WRITTEN BY:	Milo Addica Jean-Claude Carrière Jonathan Glazer
DIRECTED BY:	Jonathan Glazer
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: April 19, 2005 Theatrical: October 29, 2004
RUNNING TIME:	100 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

Nominated, Golden Lion, 2004 Venice Film Festival

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

The eerie tale is steeped in brooding atmosphere and psychological suspense thanks to Glazer's hugely imaginative visual style and creative use of music, sound, and silence.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

An effective thriller precisely because it is true to the way sophisticated people might behave in this situation. Its characters are not movie creatures, gullible, emotional and quickly moved to tears. They're realists, rich, a little jaded.

Premiere Kevin Allison

There are moments so beautifully composed and so resonant in Jonathan Glazer's (Sexy Beast) sophomore effort, I can at least propose it's a "near-great."

The New York Times Dana Stevens

Without Ms. Kidman's brilliantly nuanced performance, Birth might feel arch, chilly and a little sadistic, but she gives herself so completely to the role that the film becomes both spellbinding and heartbreaking, a delicate chamber piece with the large, troubled heart of an opera.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

What the intelligently spooky Birth does best is disturb us.

Variety David Rooney

While it veers heavily toward pretentiousness, this striking metaphysical mystery is intensely compelling, conjuring a mood between European high-arthouse and the unsettling psychological horror of "Rosemary's Baby."

USA Today Claudia Puig

Birth presents an intriguing premise about death and the possibility of rebirth in an elegant, melancholy and deliberate fashion.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

Birth makes its oddball supernaturalism seem completely, compellingly real.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

The best of what's onscreen is a mesmerizing mind-teaser.

Film Threat Rick Kisonak

A fine cast, understated treatment and tantalizing premise make for a movie well worth seeing even if you don't come away believing.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

It's corny, plodding, implausible and - on occasion - seriously creepy. At the same time, it contains a couple of this movie year's most sublime sequences, and features one of Nicole Kidman's bravest and best performances.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

The dialogue is sparse but well used -- it's refreshing to see a movie where people don't feel compelled to talk all the time.

Village Voice Dennis Lim

If Birth succeeds more as a source of visual and aural enthrallment than as supernatural narrative, it's largely because the final third hovers uncomfortably between the mystical and the earthbound.

Empire Ian Nathan

Imagine if Stanley Kubrick had made Ghost and you're some way to this classily restrained oddity, but its morbid preoccupations and ambiguity might prove too cuckoo for most.

Newsweek David Ansen

Ridiculous, and oddly unforgettable.

The New Yorker David Denby

This movie, taken all together, is one of the most bizarre combinations of distinguished talent and inane ideas that I've ever seen.

TV Guide Ken Fox

Terrific acting and fearless direction transform what might have been a silly exercise in the slightly spooky into a somber and deeply romantic mystery.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

Kidman's performance is the best thing in the movie, but it's not at all appealing.

New York Post Megan Lehmann

Kidman gives an other stunning performance in Birth, but it is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma that ultimately reveals . . . not much.

Chicago Tribune Allison Benedikt

For awhile, the stately symphonic score, urbane setting and understated dress make Birth feel powerful--until it feels empty, lacking what Glazer so furiously exhibited in his equally stylized freshman endeavor: heart.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

It's a spooky movie without anything really scary in it, a ghost story without any spirits, a romance that displays scant affection, a reincarnation tale that never uses that particular word nor engages in anything terribly transcendental.

Chicago Reader Hank Sartin

In this eerily tranquil psychological thriller, Nicole Kidman's placid countenance is like a Rorschach: you'll project onto it what you want to see.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

Despite its trappings, despite its style, Birth is just a tall tale with a short reach.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

Begins like a penetrating exploration of love, grief and suffering and ends looking like a highbrow version of "Bride of Chucky."

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

A little like the '80s crowd-pleaser "Ghost," but way artier.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

When Kidman slithers into a bathtub with her young ''husband,'' the scene, in its soft-pedaled way, is the definition of exploitation: It appears to have been cooked up for no other purpose than to conjure creepy child-porn overtones.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

The ick-factor deepens as the story progresses, but the mystery never does.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Stay away from Birth not because of what goes on (or doesn't) in a bathtub, but because this is not a very good movie.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

Such a meticulously wrought piece of hokum that it's both easy to admire and impossible to warm up to.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

Handsomely photographed, artfully edited and acted with skill and conviction. It is also so stupid that you expect to see strings of drool dripping from the corner of the screen.

Washington Post Teresa Wiltz

For all its art-house posturing, for all its exploration of the taboo topic, Birth is anything but good.

Dallas Observer Robert Wilonsky

You're almost tempted to laugh at Birth by the end, but by then you're too busy cursing it to bother.

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

Birth may be the most futile application of cinematic and acting skill I've seen all year. A little "Twilight Zone" flummery would have livened up the proceedings to no end.

The Hollywood Reporter Ray Bennett

A paranormal mystery without a spine. It has no suspense because it has no belief in itself.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Birth, which should never have been conceived, is obscure in every way: visually, philosophically and psychologically.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

Might have qualified as dumb fun if they hadn't left out the fun.

Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan

Too highbrow for the multiplex and too literal for the hipsters, it's unsatisfying both as gothic camp and serious cinema.

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

Birth is one of those films occasionally encountered that make me question my nativity or that of the film-makers. Were they and I born on the same planet? If so, how could we now have such vastly different criteria of a film story's believability?

The average user rating for this movie is 5.4 (out of 10) based on 45 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Alex J. gave it a6:
The film raises interesting questions about the nature of romantic love-- [***SPOILERS***] why is it that that Nicole Kidman's character seems so easily to succumb to the rather incredible notion that a 10 year old boy could be her dead husband? The movie seems to answer this by showing that her emotions could be explained psychologically-- she isn't in love with her new fiance, she has not moved past her grief and love for her dead husband. Yet the film also seems to want to leave these questions murky and un-resolved, in order to heighten the mystery-- maybe the boy really is her dead husband, after all? The film has a certain gravity, is visually memorable and Kidman is luminous and beautiful, really giving herself over to the role. But the lack of resolution of the story, characters that act quite absurdly and the portrayal by the young actor as the "dead husband" leave one feeling unsatisfied. The boy says nothing that would make him to appear to be really the dead husband. So I prefer the pyschological explanation, and think that the film would have been much more effective if it had gone all the way with showing what motivated both the boy and Nicole Kidman's character.

Max B. gave it a10:
This film is amazing. It astonishes me to see how many negative reviews completely fail to even acknowledge, for example, the numerous references to various works by Kubrick. Sure, it's artsy, but it's perfectly constructed, tenaciously though-provoking, and gloriously beautiful to sit through, visually, aurally, and intellectually. It's just magnificent.

Bob A. gave it a5:
Wonderfully directed and beatifully acted, (especially by Kidman), the plot, which wants to be a sort of understated thriller, never quite hits the right notes.

Rochelle N. gave it a1:
I would have felt awful had I actually PAID to rent this movie. Luckily, it was a freebie. Unrealistic and boring and a lousy ending to boot. One of the worst movies I've ever seen.

Phil j gave it a10:
This is the most underrated film of 2004. Thought provoking and mesmerizing. Go see it now.

Scott Y. gave it a1:
Acting? It's mostly people staring off into the camera for minutes at a time. There has to be about 10 pages of dialogue in the entire script. It's a weird movie, I can't imagine why this had to be made.

Scott P gave it a9:
The poor reviews on here shouldn't surprise anyone nor should they discourage you seeing this stunning film. Anything worth seeing divides audiences into those who love it and those who hate it. It's clear that most of the negative reivews come from those who found it "pretentious" and completely missed what makes it great. Be sure to see it for yourself.

Birth New Line Cinema

Birth
New Line Cinema