Birth (film)
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.
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 praise for Kidman's performance (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 mixed reviews. However, writing in The Guardian
in August 2010, film critic David Thomson
included the film in his list of '10 lost works of genius'.
) has accepted a marriage proposal from her boyfriend, Joseph (Danny Huston
).
When Clifford (Peter Stormare
), Sean's brother, arrives at Anna's engagement party, his wife Clara (Anne Heche
) excuses herself, saying she forgot to wrap Anna's gift. Instead, she buys a replacement after hurriedly burying the gift while a young boy (Cameron Bright
) secretly looks on.
At a party for Anna's mother (Lauren Bacall
), the boy who followed Clara claims to be Anna's deceased husband, Sean, and warns her not to marry Joseph. At first Anna dismisses the boy's claim. When Anna receives a letter from him the next day warning her not to marry Joseph, she realizes the boy truly believes he is her reincarnated husband.
That night Anna and Joseph discuss the letter. Since the building watchman seemed to know the boy (and that the boy is also named Sean), Joseph calls to get more information. When Sean answers the phone, Joseph rushes downstairs to confront him. He takes him to Sean's father (Ted Levine
), where the three of them order Sean to leave Anna alone. Sean refuses to recant his story, and a pained Anna sees the young Sean collapse in his father's arms. She has begun to believe the boy may be a manifestation of her dead husband.
Sean leaves a message on Anna's answering machine, which her mother overhears. That day at lunch, Anna's mother mentions that Sean wants to meet Anna in the park, and that she will know where. Anna hurries to Central Park and finds Sean waiting in the spot where Anna's husband died. He offers to submit to questioning.
Anna's brother-in-law Bob (Arliss Howard
), a doctor, talks to Sean, recording his responses on tape. He answers frankly all the questions, even giving intimate details of Anna and Sean's sex life. Sean is brought to Anna's by his fretful mother (Cara Seymour
), and he is able to identify parts of the apartment. Everyone except Anna remains reasonably doubtful. Anna's family becomes worried, particularly her sister Laura (Alison Elliott
), who treats young Sean with contempt.
When Anna misses an appointment with her fiance to spend time with Sean, Joseph begins feeling worried not merely about the boy, but about Anna's odd behavior. Joseph's jealousy is made plain when he physically attacks Sean. When Sean runs out, Anna follows him and kisses him on the lips.
Anna seems convinced by the boy's story and asks Clara and Clifford to meet him. Clara encounters Sean at the door and asks him to visit her later. When he visits, he brings a backpack full of Anna's love letters to Sean. These were Clara's spiteful engagement gift which the boy secretly unearthed and read the night of the party. We learn that Clara was Sean's lover before his death, and that he gave the letters to her unopened as proof of his love. Clara was jealous that Sean would not leave Anna, but abandoned her plan to give Anna the letters. When Clara points out that if he were really a reincarnation of Sean he would have come to her first, Sean runs out in a state of confusion and guilt.
When Anna finds Sean, she suggests they run away and marry when he is of legal age. He tells Anna that since he loves her he must not be the reincarnated Sean.
Anna apologizes to Joseph, and they are married at the beach. Sean wrote a long letter apologizing to Anna, wondering why he had the delusion of being her husband. Anna wades into the sea in anguish after the ceremony. Joseph gradually pulls her back onto the sand and whispers reassuringly into her ear.
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.
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 compared it to Rosemary's Baby
saying, "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." Birth was placed at 96 on Slant Magazine
's best films of the 2000s.
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".
Complaints of the film's "cop-out" ending are questioned by Roger Ebert
in his review, who notes: "There seem to be two possible explanations for what finally happens, but neither one is consistent with all of the facts." That the young Sean knows precisely where the adult Sean died, for example, cannot be explained by his having memorized the love letters.
Jonathan Glazer
Jonathan Glazer is an English director of films, commercials and music videos.-Biography:After studying theatre design at Nottingham Trent University, Glazer started out directing theatre and making film and television trailers, including award-winning work for the BBC...
and starring Nicole Kidman
Nicole Kidman
Nicole Mary Kidman, AC is an American-born Australian actress, singer, film producer, spokesmodel, and humanitarian. After starring in a number of small Australian films and TV shows, Kidman's breakthrough was in the 1989 thriller Dead Calm...
, Lauren Bacall
Lauren Bacall
Lauren Bacall is an American film and stage actress and model, known for her distinctive husky voice and sultry looks.She first emerged as leading lady in the Humphrey Bogart film To Have And Have Not and continued on in the film noir genre, with appearances in The Big Sleep and Dark Passage ,...
, Danny Huston
Danny Huston
-Early life:Huston was born in Rome, Italy. He hails from the illustrious Huston acting and filmmaking dynasty. He is the son of legendary director John Huston, half-brother of actress Anjelica Huston and screenwriter Tony Huston, uncle of actor Jack Huston, stepbrother of Allegra Huston, and...
and Cameron Bright
Cameron Bright
Cameron Bright is a Canadian actor. He has appeared in the films Godsend, Birth, Running Scared, Ultraviolet, X-Men: The Last Stand, Thank You for Smoking and three installments of The Twilight Saga.-Life and career:Bright was born in Victoria, British Columbia; he was given his middle name,...
.
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.
Distributed by New Line Cinema
New Line Cinema
New Line Cinema, often simply referred to as New Line, is an American film studio. It was founded in 1967 by Robert Shaye and Michael Lynne as a film distributor, later becoming an independent film studio. It became a subsidiary of Time Warner in 1996 and was merged with larger sister studio Warner...
, it earned 12th position on its opening weekend, garnering $
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
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
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and $18.8 million abroad. Despite praise for Kidman's performance (which earned her a Golden Globe Award
Golden Globe Award
The Golden Globe Award is an accolade bestowed by the 93 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association recognizing excellence in film and television, both domestic and foreign...
nomination) and Glazer's direction, as well as Harris Savides
Harris Savides
Harris Savides is a contemporary American cinematographer. Notable films include Gus Van Sant's "young death" trilogy , The Game, Zodiac and American Gangster....
's cinematography and Alexandre Desplat
Alexandre Desplat
Alexandre Michel Gérard Desplat is a French film composer. He has received four Academy Award nominations, five BAFTA nominations, five Golden Globe nominations, winning a Golden Globe for his work on The Painted Veil in 2006, and two Grammy nominations. In 2011, Desplat won his first British...
's score, the film generally received mixed reviews. However, writing in The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
in August 2010, film critic David Thomson
David Thomson (film critic)
David Thomson is a film critic and historian based in the United States and the author of more than 20 books, including The New Biographical Dictionary of Film.-Career:...
included the film in his list of '10 lost works of genius'.
Plot
A narrator lectures to an unseen audience, mentioning that he disbelieves in reincarnation. We then see this man, Sean, running through Central Park, where he dies of a heart attack. Ten years later, the man's widow, Anna (Nicole KidmanNicole Kidman
Nicole Mary Kidman, AC is an American-born Australian actress, singer, film producer, spokesmodel, and humanitarian. After starring in a number of small Australian films and TV shows, Kidman's breakthrough was in the 1989 thriller Dead Calm...
) has accepted a marriage proposal from her boyfriend, Joseph (Danny Huston
Danny Huston
-Early life:Huston was born in Rome, Italy. He hails from the illustrious Huston acting and filmmaking dynasty. He is the son of legendary director John Huston, half-brother of actress Anjelica Huston and screenwriter Tony Huston, uncle of actor Jack Huston, stepbrother of Allegra Huston, and...
).
When Clifford (Peter Stormare
Peter Stormare
is a Swedish film, stage, voice and television actor as well as a theatrical director, playwright and musician.- Early life :...
), Sean's brother, arrives at Anna's engagement party, his wife Clara (Anne Heche
Anne Heche
Anne Celeste Heche is an American actress, director, and screenwriter. She started her career on the daytime soap opera Another World, for which she won a Daytime Emmy Award in 1991. Heche gradually landed supporting roles in feature films, and in 1997 appeared in I Know What You Did Last Summer,...
) excuses herself, saying she forgot to wrap Anna's gift. Instead, she buys a replacement after hurriedly burying the gift while a young boy (Cameron Bright
Cameron Bright
Cameron Bright is a Canadian actor. He has appeared in the films Godsend, Birth, Running Scared, Ultraviolet, X-Men: The Last Stand, Thank You for Smoking and three installments of The Twilight Saga.-Life and career:Bright was born in Victoria, British Columbia; he was given his middle name,...
) secretly looks on.
At a party for Anna's mother (Lauren Bacall
Lauren Bacall
Lauren Bacall is an American film and stage actress and model, known for her distinctive husky voice and sultry looks.She first emerged as leading lady in the Humphrey Bogart film To Have And Have Not and continued on in the film noir genre, with appearances in The Big Sleep and Dark Passage ,...
), the boy who followed Clara claims to be Anna's deceased husband, Sean, and warns her not to marry Joseph. At first Anna dismisses the boy's claim. When Anna receives a letter from him the next day warning her not to marry Joseph, she realizes the boy truly believes he is her reincarnated husband.
That night Anna and Joseph discuss the letter. Since the building watchman seemed to know the boy (and that the boy is also named Sean), Joseph calls to get more information. When Sean answers the phone, Joseph rushes downstairs to confront him. He takes him to Sean's father (Ted Levine
Ted Levine
Frank Theodore "Ted" Levine is an American actor. He is known for his roles as Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs and Captain Leland Stottlemeyer in the television series Monk.-Early life and career:...
), where the three of them order Sean to leave Anna alone. Sean refuses to recant his story, and a pained Anna sees the young Sean collapse in his father's arms. She has begun to believe the boy may be a manifestation of her dead husband.
Sean leaves a message on Anna's answering machine, which her mother overhears. That day at lunch, Anna's mother mentions that Sean wants to meet Anna in the park, and that she will know where. Anna hurries to Central Park and finds Sean waiting in the spot where Anna's husband died. He offers to submit to questioning.
Anna's brother-in-law Bob (Arliss Howard
Arliss Howard
Arliss Howard is an American actor, writer and film director.-Life and career:Howard was born in Independence, Missouri in 1954, and graduated from Truman High School and Columbia College at Columbia, Missouri. Howard established his career with stand-out roles in Full Metal Jacket and Ruby...
), a doctor, talks to Sean, recording his responses on tape. He answers frankly all the questions, even giving intimate details of Anna and Sean's sex life. Sean is brought to Anna's by his fretful mother (Cara Seymour
Cara Seymour
Cara Seymour is an English actress of stage and screen. She has appeared in many ensemble casts for acclaimed films such as American Psycho, Adaptation., Gangs of New York, Hotel Rwanda, and The Savages....
), and he is able to identify parts of the apartment. Everyone except Anna remains reasonably doubtful. Anna's family becomes worried, particularly her sister Laura (Alison Elliott
Alison Elliott
Alison A. Elliott is an American actress.Elliott was born in San Francisco, CA, the daughter of Barbara, a teacher of nursing, and Bob Elliott, a computer executive. She moved with her family to Tokyo, Japan when she was 4 years old, and then moved back to San Francisco when she was 8, where she...
), who treats young Sean with contempt.
When Anna misses an appointment with her fiance to spend time with Sean, Joseph begins feeling worried not merely about the boy, but about Anna's odd behavior. Joseph's jealousy is made plain when he physically attacks Sean. When Sean runs out, Anna follows him and kisses him on the lips.
Anna seems convinced by the boy's story and asks Clara and Clifford to meet him. Clara encounters Sean at the door and asks him to visit her later. When he visits, he brings a backpack full of Anna's love letters to Sean. These were Clara's spiteful engagement gift which the boy secretly unearthed and read the night of the party. We learn that Clara was Sean's lover before his death, and that he gave the letters to her unopened as proof of his love. Clara was jealous that Sean would not leave Anna, but abandoned her plan to give Anna the letters. When Clara points out that if he were really a reincarnation of Sean he would have come to her first, Sean runs out in a state of confusion and guilt.
When Anna finds Sean, she suggests they run away and marry when he is of legal age. He tells Anna that since he loves her he must not be the reincarnated Sean.
Anna apologizes to Joseph, and they are married at the beach. Sean wrote a long letter apologizing to Anna, wondering why he had the delusion of being her husband. Anna wades into the sea in anguish after the ceremony. Joseph gradually pulls her back onto the sand and whispers reassuringly into her ear.
Cast
- Nicole KidmanNicole KidmanNicole Mary Kidman, AC is an American-born Australian actress, singer, film producer, spokesmodel, and humanitarian. After starring in a number of small Australian films and TV shows, Kidman's breakthrough was in the 1989 thriller Dead Calm...
as Anna - Cameron BrightCameron BrightCameron Bright is a Canadian actor. He has appeared in the films Godsend, Birth, Running Scared, Ultraviolet, X-Men: The Last Stand, Thank You for Smoking and three installments of The Twilight Saga.-Life and career:Bright was born in Victoria, British Columbia; he was given his middle name,...
as Young Sean - Danny HustonDanny Huston-Early life:Huston was born in Rome, Italy. He hails from the illustrious Huston acting and filmmaking dynasty. He is the son of legendary director John Huston, half-brother of actress Anjelica Huston and screenwriter Tony Huston, uncle of actor Jack Huston, stepbrother of Allegra Huston, and...
as Joseph - Lauren BacallLauren BacallLauren Bacall is an American film and stage actress and model, known for her distinctive husky voice and sultry looks.She first emerged as leading lady in the Humphrey Bogart film To Have And Have Not and continued on in the film noir genre, with appearances in The Big Sleep and Dark Passage ,...
as Eleanor - Alison ElliottAlison ElliottAlison A. Elliott is an American actress.Elliott was born in San Francisco, CA, the daughter of Barbara, a teacher of nursing, and Bob Elliott, a computer executive. She moved with her family to Tokyo, Japan when she was 4 years old, and then moved back to San Francisco when she was 8, where she...
as Laura - Arliss HowardArliss HowardArliss Howard is an American actor, writer and film director.-Life and career:Howard was born in Independence, Missouri in 1954, and graduated from Truman High School and Columbia College at Columbia, Missouri. Howard established his career with stand-out roles in Full Metal Jacket and Ruby...
as Bob - Michael Desautels as Sean
- Anne HecheAnne HecheAnne Celeste Heche is an American actress, director, and screenwriter. She started her career on the daytime soap opera Another World, for which she won a Daytime Emmy Award in 1991. Heche gradually landed supporting roles in feature films, and in 1997 appeared in I Know What You Did Last Summer,...
as Clara - Peter StormarePeter Stormareis a Swedish film, stage, voice and television actor as well as a theatrical director, playwright and musician.- Early life :...
as Clifford - Ted LevineTed LevineFrank Theodore "Ted" Levine is an American actor. He is known for his roles as Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs and Captain Leland Stottlemeyer in the television series Monk.-Early life and career:...
as Mr. Conte - Cara SeymourCara SeymourCara Seymour is an English actress of stage and screen. She has appeared in many ensemble casts for acclaimed films such as American Psycho, Adaptation., Gangs of New York, Hotel Rwanda, and The Savages....
as Mrs. Conte
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 taleFairy tale
A fairy tale is a type of short story that typically features such folkloric characters, such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, dwarves, giants or gnomes, and usually magic or enchantments. However, only a small number of the stories refer to fairies...
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
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
to discuss the idea with French screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière
Jean-Claude Carrière
Jean-Claude Carrière is a screenwriter and actor. Alumnus of the École normale supérieure de Saint-Cloud, he was a frequent collaborator with Luis Buñuel...
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
Sexy Beast
Sexy Beast is a 2000 British-Spanish crime drama film directed by Jonathan Glazer and starring Ray Winstone, Ben Kingsley, and Ian McShane. Produced by Jeremy Thomas, it was Glazer's debut feature film, who had previously been a music video director for videos such as Rabbit in Your Headlights for...
. 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 FestivalVenice Film Festival
The Venice International Film Festival is the oldest international film festival in the world. Founded by Count Giuseppe Volpi in 1932 as the "Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica", the festival has since taken place every year in late August or early September on the island of the...
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
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
and a 50 metascore at Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
. In his review for Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
, 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
New York Daily News
The Daily News of New York City is the fourth most widely circulated daily newspaper in the United States with a daily circulation of 605,677, as of November 1, 2011....
, Jack Mathews called the film, "corny, plodding, implausible and - on occasion - seriously creepy". However, Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of four and compared it to Rosemary's Baby
Rosemary's Baby (film)
Rosemary's Baby is a 1968 American horror film written and directed by Roman Polanski, based on the bestselling 1967 novel Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin...
saying, "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." Birth was placed at 96 on Slant Magazine
Slant Magazine
Slant Magazine is an online publication that features reviews of movies, music, TV, DVDs, theater, and video games, as well as interviews with actors, directors, and musicians. The site covers various film festivals like the New York Film Festival.- History :...
's best films of the 2000s.
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".
Complaints of the film's "cop-out" ending are questioned by Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
in his review, who notes: "There seem to be two possible explanations for what finally happens, but neither one is consistent with all of the facts." That the young Sean knows precisely where the adult Sean died, for example, cannot be explained by his having memorized the love letters.
External links
- Why Is This Film Called Birth? Investigating Jonathan Glazer’s Mystery of the Heart Essay at 24LiesASecond
- Interview with Jonathan Glazer by Dave Calhoun for Time Out (26 Oct 2004)
- Interview with Jonathan Glazer (Birth) by Daniel Robert Epstein for Suicide Girls
- Giving Birth to Controversy
- Grief Encounter
- Kidman: the best actress of her time?
- Birth Control - Village Voice
- Cinematographer Harris Savides on Trust, Birth, and Invisible Light