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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

97
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
83
Alexandra
43
Anamorph
35
Babysitters, The
32
Backseat
80
Band's Visit, The
62
Battle for Haditha
47
Bella
63
Blind Mountain
71
Blindsight
47
Boarding Gate
63
Body of War
58
Bra Boys
70
Caramel
54
Cashback
44
Chaos Theory
32
Chapter 27
69
Chicago 10
82
Chop Shop
46
CJ7
78
Counterfeiters, The
30
Cover
48
Dark Matter
35
Deal
61
Dhamma Brothers, The
92
Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The
73
Duchess of Langeais, The
20
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed
58
Fall, The
43
Favor, The
58
First Saturday in May, The
57
Flawless
87
Flight of the Red Balloon, The
xx
From Within
44
Frontier(s)
59
Fugitive Pieces
41
Funny Games
66
George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead
61
Girls Rock!
55
Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts
57
Grand, The
58
Hats Off
68
Honeydripper
xx
Jack and Jill vs. the World
67
Jellyfish
xx
Kiss the Bride
37
Life Before Her Eyes, The
72
Life of Reilly, The
50
Look
65
Married Life
35
Meet Bill
63
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
54
Mister Lonely
52
My Blueberry Nights
71
My Brother Is an Only Child
49
Noise
61
OSS 117: Cairo - Nest of Spies
83
Paranoid Park
55
Pathology
48
Penelope
90
Persepolis
62
Planet B-Boy
xx
Plumm Summer, A
67
Praying with Lior
44
Previous Engagement, A
72
Priceless
17
Prom Night
69
Redbelt
72
Roman de gare
48
Run, Fat Boy, Run
85
Savages, The
24
Sex and Death 101
66
Shelter
75
Shotgun Stories
40
Sleepwalking
67
Snow Angels
64
Son of Rambow
71
Standard Operating Procedure
76
Stuff and Dough
64
Surfwise
xx
Tashan
82
Taxi to the Dark Side
57
Teeth
56
Then She Found Me
55
Tracey Fragments, The
56
Turn the River
72
Tuya's Marriage
83
U2 3D
59
Under the Same Moon
76
Unforeseen, The
xx
Unsettled
91
Up the Yangtze
55
Vice
79
Visitor, The
64
Water Lilies
45
Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden?
57
Without the King
74
Witnesses, The
63
XXY
67
Year My Parents Went on Vacation, The
75
Young@Heart
45
Zombie Strippers
97
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
92
Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The
91
Up the Yangtze
90
Persepolis
87
Flight of the Red Balloon, The
85
Savages, The
83
Paranoid Park
83
Alexandra
83
U2 3D
82
Chop Shop
82
Taxi to the Dark Side
80
Band's Visit, The
79
Visitor, The
78
Counterfeiters, The
76
Unforeseen, The
76
Stuff and Dough
75
Young@Heart
75
Shotgun Stories
74
Witnesses, The
73
Duchess of Langeais, The
72
Roman de gare
72
Priceless
72
Tuya's Marriage
72
Life of Reilly, The
71
My Brother Is an Only Child
71
Blindsight
71
Standard Operating Procedure
70
Caramel
69
Redbelt
69
Chicago 10
68
Honeydripper
67
Snow Angels
67
Praying with Lior
67
Year My Parents Went on Vacation, The
67
Jellyfish
66
George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead
66
Shelter
65
Married Life
64
Surfwise
64
Son of Rambow
64
Water Lilies
63
XXY
63
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
63
Body of War
63
Blind Mountain
62
Planet B-Boy
62
Battle for Haditha
61
Dhamma Brothers, The
61
OSS 117: Cairo - Nest of Spies
61
Girls Rock!
59
Under the Same Moon
59
Fugitive Pieces
58
First Saturday in May, The
58
Fall, The
58
Hats Off
58
Bra Boys
57
Flawless
57
Teeth
57
Without the King
57
Grand, The
56
Turn the River
56
Then She Found Me
55
Vice
55
Tracey Fragments, The
55
Pathology
55
Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts
54
Cashback
54
Mister Lonely
52
My Blueberry Nights
50
Look
49
Noise
48
Run, Fat Boy, Run
48
Dark Matter
48
Penelope
47
Bella
47
Boarding Gate
46
CJ7
45
Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden?
45
Zombie Strippers
44
Frontier(s)
44
Chaos Theory
44
Previous Engagement, A
43
Anamorph
43
Favor, The
41
Funny Games
40
Sleepwalking
37
Life Before Her Eyes, The
35
Meet Bill
35
Babysitters, The
35
Deal
32
Backseat
32
Chapter 27
30
Cover
24
Sex and Death 101
20
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed
17
Prom Night
xx
Tashan
xx
Unsettled
xx
Plumm Summer, A
xx
Kiss the Bride
xx
Jack and Jill vs. the World
xx
From Within
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
Birthday Girl
Miramax Films
MPAA RATING: R for sexuality and language
Starring
Nicole Kidman,
Ben Chaplin,
Vincent Cassel,
Mathieu Kassovitz,
Stephen Mangan,
Alexander Armstrong,
Mark Gatiss,
and
Ben Miller
A thriller about a mild-mannered banker (Chaplin) who takes a chance on a Russian mail-order bride (Kidman) arranged via the internet. (Miramax Films)
| GENRE(S): |
Romance
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Jez Butterworth
Tom Butterworth
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Jez Butterworth
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: August 13, 2002
Video: August 13, 2002
Theatrical: February 1, 2002
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
93 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
UK |

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...
80
Variety
Deborah Young
Charmingly setting aside glamour for a turn at pure acting, Nicole Kidman zings up the already zingy script of Birthday Girl.

80
Village Voice
Mark Holcomb
It may not be particularly innovative, but the film's crisp, unaffected style and air of gentle longing make it unexpectedly rewarding.

80
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Keith Phipps
Nicole Kidman -- continuing the string of remarkable performances that have followed "Eyes Wide Shut" -- finds plenty of fodder in the long-delayed Birthday Girl. A grimy thriller with a wicked streak of humor.

75
USA Today
Mike Clark
The actress may get an Oscar nomination for the wrong movie -- "Moulin Rouge" over "The Others" -- but it would be a double misfortune for audiences to overlook a performance that boosts its movie from moderate to memorable.

75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Rick Groen
Rare is the movie that arrives without fanfare -- that sneaks between the cracks, pops up relatively unheralded on the big screen, and takes the viewer by delighted surprise. Well, check the moon for blue because Birthday Girl is just such a picture.

75
San Francisco Chronicle
Mick LaSalle
Black comedies are rare enough. Birthday Girl is a member of an even rarer species, the black romantic comedy.

75
New York Daily News
Jack Mathews
It's a slight, old-fashioned B movie, the last thing you would expect from an actress coming off a breakout year, but it has a charm and freshness we don't see much these days.
70
Los Angeles Times
Kenneth Turan
Butterworth guides us through the world of chaos and romantic confusion he's created as if it's the most natural place in the world. After a while, we actually believe it is.

70
Rolling Stone
Peter Travers
Keep your eye on Kidman, whose kinky, kittenish performance turns unexpected emotional corners that pull you up short.

67
Austin Chronicle
Marc Savlov
Still, it's worth checking out if only to see Kidman immolate everything else on screen through sheer sexy charisma. Tom who?

67
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Ellen A. Kim
The good news is that Kidman's the best thing in this rather subdued film: sexy, coy and even a bit funny. The bad news is that the movie itself is unlikely to register very long on anyone's radar.

67
Entertainment Weekly
Staff (Not Credited)
If British writer-director Jez Butterworth had let his sophomore picture get as dirty as Kidman's game recklessness invited -- she started this before ''Moulin Rouge'' and ''The Others'' -- he would have served up a tasty piece of cake.

63
ReelViews
James Berardinelli
The romantic comedy doesn't have much, but it has Kidman.

63
Boston Globe
Loren King
This bizarre, uneven comedy is notable mostly for the unsettling presence of Nicole Kidman in full, kinky, sex-kitten mode.

63
Chicago Tribune
Michael Wilmington
A paper-thin wish-fulfillment comedy about escaping small-town repressions and blasting conformity.

63
Charlotte Observer
Lawrence Toppman
The movie runs out of steam before its finish, but she (Kidman) doesn't.

63
Miami Herald
Connie Ogle
Won't make you forget Kidman's better work, but it's not a film you long to excise from your memory.
60
TV Guide
Maitland McDonagh
Kidman accomplishes a remarkable feat of transformation, adopting not only an accent, but a slightly seedy, faintly feral demeanor that almost makes you forget her icy good looks and fashion model's figure.

60
Film Threat
Tim Merrill
Starts out as a first-rate chick movie and winds up a second-rate guy movie. But if this somehow proves to be a formula for the perfect date movie, then Kidman is even more brilliant than we thought.

50
Philadelphia Inquirer
Carrie Rickey
Quickly devolves into a violent thriller that resolves itself in sadomasochistic romance.
50
New York Post
Lou Lumenick
Ultimately, Birthday Girl disintegrates into a fairly routine -- and brutal -- caper movie.

50
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
There is a curious problem with Birthday Girl, hard to put your finger on: The movie is kind of sour. It wants to be funny and a little nasty, it wants to surprise us and then console us, but what it mostly does is make us restless.

50
Baltimore Sun
Chris Kaltenbach
See it to be reminded (if you need further reminding) of this actress' remarkable range. Otherwise, take a pass.
40
The New York Times
A.O. Scott
This breathless demi-noir has so much bounce that we barely get any time to mull over the gaping holes in its moth-eaten plot. It is competent but extremely slight.

40
Salon.com
Charles Taylor
It's that sense of ardor that's missing from Ben Chaplin's performance in Birthday Girl.

40
Wall Street Journal
Joe Morgenstern
There's nothing wrong with beguiling star turns, but I wish this one had been surrounded by more of a movie. Birthday Girl is a harmless trifle that makes 93 minutes go by as if they were hardly more than an hour and a half.
40
Washington Post
Desson Thomson
Uneven, not particularly inspired comic thriller.

30
LA Weekly
Manohla Dargis
Kidman, who speaks Russian for much of the movie, turns in a technically impeccable performance, but the movie gets far more out of her than she out of it.

30
Washington Post
Stephen Hunter
Between bad hair and tonal irregularity, the movie doesn't give you much to like.

30
New York Magazine
Peter Rainer
The film's Russians are all played by French and Australian actors. Too bad Butterworth didn't find a Russian to play the Brit. That would have made the inauthenticity complete.

20
Chicago Reader
Lisa Alspector
The most subtly revolting aspect of the movie is how it manages to exploit violence for cheap thrills, in part by equating submission with love.

10
New Times (L.A.)
Gregory Weinkauf
It's just that this clunky, inane vehicle sputters barely a few feet down its quaint English highway before you want to bid it "do zvidániya, dumb-ass!"


The average user rating for this movie is 7.3 (out of 10) based on 6 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
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