Birthday Girl

Mild-mannered British bank clerk and closet porn consumer John (Ben Chaplin) attempts to upgrade his loner lifestyle by purchasing a Russian mail-order bride. He gets much more woman and extra baggage than he may be able to handle when his brooding fiancée Nadia (Nicole Kidman spewing both Russian dialogue and hair-trigger sexuality) arrives with no apparent knowledge of the English language and is soon joined by two fellow male Soviets (Matthew Kassovitz and Vincent Cassel) of suspect character. The film transforms from gritty black romantic comedy to odd crime story with a few sly and a few hard-to-swallow incidents and twists as John’s life plunges from honeymoon to nightmare. Directed and co-written by Jez Butterworth.