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Birth (film)
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Birth is a 2004 film directed by Jonathan Glazer and starring Nicole Kidman, Lauren Bacall, Danny Huston and Cameron Bright. The story is about a young widow from a prominent Manhattan-based family named Anna (played by Kidman) who slowly becomes convinced that her husband, Sean, who died ten years previously, has been reincarnated in the form of a 10-year-old boy also named Sean (Bright). At first Anna is skeptical, but Sean's intimate knowledge of their past makes her think twice.
Commercially, the film was unremarkable.
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Encyclopedia
Birth is a 2004 film directed by Jonathan Glazer and starring Nicole Kidman, Lauren Bacall, Danny Huston and Cameron Bright. The story is about a young widow from a prominent Manhattan-based family named Anna (played by Kidman) who slowly becomes convinced that her husband, Sean, who died ten years previously, has been reincarnated in the form of a 10-year-old boy also named Sean (Bright). At first Anna is skeptical, but Sean's intimate knowledge of their past makes her think twice.
Commercially, the film was unremarkable. Distributed by New Line Cinema, it earned 12th position on its opening weekend, garnering $1.7 million with bookings at 550 screens. The combined worldwide total box office was $23.9 million, with $5.1 million in the United States and $18.8 million abroad. Despite some praise for Kidman's portrayal (which earned her a Golden Globe Award nomination) and Glazer's direction, as well as Harris Savides's cinematography and Alexandre Desplat's score, the film generally received middling reviews.
Tagline: Careful what you wish for.
Plot
The film starts with a man running till he is too tired. In the next scene, 10 years later, we see Anna (Nicole Kidman) standing in front of his grave. We find out that Anna lost his husband 10 year before. She now has a new boyfriend named Joseph.
Joseph invited friends because he is going to propose her. A couple arrives but she feels uncomfortable. Anna runs away to hide a letter in a park. A 10 year old boy named Sean arrives in Anna's house and claims that he is Sean, her deceased husband.
Cast
Production
Director Jonathan Glazer was interested in making a film about "the idea of eternal love" and a "mystery of the heart". While writing the script, he was not interested in making a ghost story or a "paranormal piece". He envisioned a fairy tale structure early on. The initial idea for the film came to him one day when he was in his kitchen: "There's this little kid and he tells a woman he's her dead husband - and he's ten years old.". Glazer went to Paris to discuss the idea with French screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière at his producer's recommendation. Carrière ended up helping Glazer with the story and acted as a script consultant. The director spent eight months going back and forth to Paris every weekend turning one paragraph into three acts. The script went through 21 drafts as Glazer and co-screenwriter Milo Addica worked on the story. With only a few weeks before principal photography was to begin, the two writers decided to refocus the entire film. Originally, the script was about the boy and they changed it to be about the woman instead.
Actress Nicole Kidman read the screenplay and wanted to do the film when she found out that Glazer was directing as she loved his previous film, Sexy Beast. She approached the director about doing the film. At first, he resisted because he felt that "her celebrity is so everywhere that I thought it could only hurt the delicate nature of this character". However, he met with Kidman and realized that "she was ready to inhabit the role". The more he talked to Kidman about her character, he would rewrite the script on weekends, tailoring it specifically for her. To show Anna in mourning both externally and internally, Glazer gave her short hair, spare wardrobe and short, clipped speech. The director explained Anna's appearance as "somebody who had sort of let all glamor go and sexuality go". Kidman said that Glazer instructed her to do small, personal reactions. She found the character to be all-consuming so that she could not separate herself from the role. To research for the role, Kidman spoke to two friends who had lost their fathers and they talked about how it still affected them years after.
Addica and Glazer often wrote scenes the day before they were shot, giving them to the actors on the actual day they were shooting.
Reception
Birth debuted at the 2004 Venice Film Festival where its first press screening was greeted with widely reported booing and catcalls. Glazer responded, "People are a bit polarised by it, which is healthy".
The film opened in 550 theatres on October 29, 2004 grossing USD $1.7 million on its opening weekend. It went on to gross $5.1 million in North America and $18.8 million in the rest of the world with a worldwide total of $23.9 million, barely above its $20 million budget.
The film was not well-received among critics garnering generally mixed to negative reviews. Birth has a 40% rating at Rotten Tomatoes and a 50 metascore at Metacritic. In his review for Newsweek, David Ansen wrote, "the script is hooey. Birth is ridiculous, and oddly unforgettable". Michael O'Sullivan, in his review for the Washington Post, wrote, "What I'm not so fond of is the cop-out ultimately taken by the filmmakers, who can't seem to follow through on their promisingly metaphysical premise (let alone the theme of obsessive love), electing instead to eliminate all ambiguity". In his review for the New York Daily News, Jack Mathews called the film, "corny, plodding, implausible and - on occasion - seriously creepy". However, Roger Ebert gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of four and wrote, "Birth is less sensational and more ominous, and also more intriguing because instead of going for quick thrills, it explores what might really happen if a 10-year-old turned up and said what Sean says". In his review for the New York Times, A.O. Scott praised Nicole Kidman's performance: "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."
Controversy
The film generated controversy due to a scene wherein Kidman shares a bath with Bright, both apparently naked. In fact, Bright was never naked and the two actors were never even in the same room during the filming of the bath scene apart from one camera shot, and when this shot happened both actors wore special clothes that were not visible to the camera. Glazer insists that the scene is not erotic or exploitative. "I can imagine that, before people see it, they might think it was salacious. But I knew it was never going to be that."
At a press conference at the Venice Film Festival, Kidman addressed the controversy of her character kissing a boy: "It wasn't that I wanted to make a film where I kiss a 10-year-old boy. I wanted to make a film where you understand love." Further controversy occurred at the festival when a journalist described Kidman as a "screen legend", to which her co-star, Lauren Bacall replied, "She is a beginner". Kidman downplayed Bacall's remarks and said, "I certainly don't feel like a big star in Hollywood".
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