Birthday Bombs

he chugs vodka. She vomits from car windows. She chain-smokes. No, she's not going through sorority rush--she's Nadia (Nicole Kidman) in the tortuous bride-by-mail comedy, Birthday Girl.

A series of clichZs wrapped around a tiny plot, Birthday Girl explores the popular fad of ordering a Russian bride over the Internet and having her two criminally insane cousins come along for the ride. Given the lack of exposition, ordering a disastrous bride over the Internet must be a common practice in England. The ease with which all of the characters deal with the situation makes every attempt at a squirm-inducing gag underwhelming and uninteresting.

John Buckingham (Ben Chapin) is the meek British bank-teller that is duped by Kidman's innocuous Internet description--cooks, cleans, speaks English, etc. Forgetting the first rule of women--they don't look like Nicole Kidman if they cook, clean and get bilingual all day--John is surprised when he tests her English. "Are you a giraffe?" "Yes."

By the time the story reveals that Nadia is more than she seems--not that there is any question that she is hiding something, given the transparent story--the audience has followed twists and turns as unintelligible as Nadia's English.

Kidman, who was on a hot streak with her work in Moulin Rouge! and The Others, lays an egg in this film. Granted, Birthday Girl has been in the can for three years--long before shooting on her two better films. If this film had come out a few weeks earlier, it may have hurt the star's chances for an Oscar nod. Was there manipulation on her behalf? The Oscar ballots were due on the day the film was released, most of them returned a week earlier. Hmmm.

To her credit, Kidman has never shied away from edgier roles (To Die For, Eyes Wide Shut). Birthday Girl, despite its yearnings to be a wild, trashy comedy, is as tame as a fete for a one-year-old.