Birth (2004)

Film: Birth (2004)
Stars: Nicole Kidman, Cameron Bright, Danny Huston, Lauren Bacall, Anne Heche
Director: Jonathan Glazer
Oscar History: No nominations, but Kidman got a Globe nomination.
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

It's hard to remember now considering she's basically a treasure in the public's mind (particularly post-Big Little Lies), but in 2004 Nicole Kidman was about to endure what seemingly every actress endures in the years after her Oscar win: a backlash.  Kidman's win in 2002 wasn't without its detractors-some have claimed that while they were glad Kidman has an Oscar, that she didn't win it for the right performance (we'll get to that someday when we get to the OVP's of 2002, but I'll preface I like her work in The Hours more than your average moviegoer).  As a result, in the years that followed, Kidman's work in increasingly eclectic work with cinematic auteurs (rather than moving into more commercial fare after winning such a mainstream award) led to her having a pretty diverse filmography, even if it's one that not a lot of people saw.  One of the more critically-complicated of these was Birth, a movie that received deeply mixed reviews at the time but developed something of a cult status in the years that followed with cinephiles.  As a result, I wanted to see what all the fuss was about considering Kidman did receive a Globe nomination for the picture (and as we resume our 2019 OVP next week, we're not far off from also discussing the movies of 2004), so I caught this movie recently.

(Spoilers Ahead) Anna (Kidman) is a widow who is on the precipice of starting another marriage to Joseph (Huston) ten years after the death of her husband Sean.  During an engagement party, a young boy (Bright) shows up claiming to be a reincarnated version of Anna's husband Sean.  Initially confused, both Joseph & Anna become frustrated and send the "Young Sean" back to his family, thinking it's just a prank. However, the next day Anna's mother Eleanor (Bacall) says that the Young Sean wants to meet Anna, and they do meet at the exact place the elder Sean died.  Young Sean knows shocking details about his "old life," including things about his sex life with Anna, and while everyone else remains dubious, Anna begins to believe that this is her husband brought back to life, and starts to doubt her relationship with Joseph.  Eventually we learn that the Young Sean is not the real Sean, because the real Sean was not in love with Anna; he was in love with his sister-in-law Clara (Heche), who tells him this as proof that he can't be Sean, because Sean would've come to her, not to Anna.  The film ends with an anguished Anna marrying Joseph, who forgives her for her doubts.

The movie, as you can imagine, is pretty provocative & quite cerebral.  There is a lot of conversation about love, death, & what we lose when a loved one dies, and the things we have to do to move on with our lives (including enduring the guilt that comes with moving on from someone we loved).  I totally understand, therefore, why this is such a polarizing film.  The ending occasionally feels like a bizarre copout-it's rare that I leave a movie wanting more ambiguity, but as we learn how the fake Sean knows so much about Anna (through Anna's unopened love letters that Clara was going to give her as a spiteful engagement present, but decided against), we never really understand his motives as to why he initially chose Anna (supposedly it was because he claimed he was in love with her, but is it just a case where he liked Anna from afar, and was mentally unstable enough to believe himself to be the ghost of her late husband...there was a gap in the plot here).

That said, I liked Birth.  I absolutely loved Jonathan Glazer's followup film to Birth (2014's Under the Skin), and there's a similar pattern with this movie, where we have to understand who the real person is, and not just who is being presented to the screen.  The movie wouldn't work without Kidman's excellent central performance.  She plays this role internally, her devotion to her ex-husband (whom, perhaps, she loved more than she loves her next husband, and therefore wants to believe is still alive) so palpable, is controlled & thoughtful.  It's hard to grasp that this was one of the films that led to Kidman's foolish backlash at the time, considering she's so good in the movie, but I'm guessing in conjunction with poor commercial fare like The Stepford Wives and Bewitched at the time, it was inevitable.