Birthday Girl

Miramax Films | Release Date: February 1, 2002

CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION

51	METASCORE Mixed or average reviews based on 32 Critic Reviews

Positive:

Mixed:

Negative:

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Critic Reviews

Critic score Publication By date

Deborah Young

Charmingly setting aside glamour for a turn at pure acting, Nicole Kidman zings up the already zingy script of Birthday Girl. Read full review

Mark Holcomb

It may not be particularly innovative, but the film's crisp, unaffected style and air of gentle longing make it unexpectedly rewarding. Read full review

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. Read full review

Mick LaSalle

Black comedies are rare enough. Birthday Girl is a member of an even rarer species, the black romantic comedy. Read full review

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.

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. Read full review

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. Read full review

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. Read full review

Peter Travers

Keep your eye on Kidman, whose kinky, kittenish performance turns unexpected emotional corners that pull you up short. Read full review

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. Read full review

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. Read full review

Marc Savlov

Still, it's worth checking out if only to see Kidman immolate everything else on screen through sheer sexy charisma. Tom who? Read full review

Loren King

This bizarre, uneven comedy is notable mostly for the unsettling presence of Nicole Kidman in full, kinky, sex-kitten mode. Read full review

Michael Wilmington

A paper-thin wish-fulfillment comedy about escaping small-town repressions and blasting conformity. Read full review

James Berardinelli

The romantic comedy doesn't have much, but it has Kidman. Read full review

Lawrence Toppman

The movie runs out of steam before its finish, but she (Kidman) doesn't. Read full review

Connie Ogle

Won't make you forget Kidman's better work, but it's not a film you long to excise from your memory.

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. Read full review

TV Guide MagazineMaitland 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. Read full review

Carrie Rickey

Quickly devolves into a violent thriller that resolves itself in sadomasochistic romance.

Lou Lumenick

Ultimately, Birthday Girl disintegrates into a fairly routine -- and brutal -- caper movie. Read full review

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. Read full review

Chris Kaltenbach

See it to be reminded (if you need further reminding) of this actress' remarkable range. Otherwise, take a pass.

Desson Thomson

Uneven, not particularly inspired comic thriller. Read full review

Charles Taylor

It's that sense of ardor that's missing from Ben Chaplin's performance in Birthday Girl. Read full review

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.

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. Read full review

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. Read full review

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. Read full review

Stephen Hunter

Between bad hair and tonal irregularity, the movie doesn't give you much to like. Read full review

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. Read full review

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!" Read full review