From Russia With Love

“Birthday Girl” is something rather different, both for star Nicole Kidman and for us. It’s an adventurous, unsettling, heedlessly implausible film, equal parts comedy, romance, excitement and raw emotion. In a fierce black farce, “Birthday Girl’s” remixing of traditional genre elements tells you from frame one that a distinctive film sensibility is at work.

That sensibility belongs to British director Jez Butterworth, who wrote the film with brother Tom and recruited brother Steve to work as producer. Jez also wrote his directing debut, 1997’s “Mojo,” which won numerous British theater awards as a play, and he is nothing if not fearless in his casting. For Nadia, a Vampirella-in-spiked-boots Russian mail-order bride, Butterworth went with Australian Kidman. And he picked two young stalwarts of the French film industry, actor Vincent Cassel and actor-director Mathieu Kassovitz, for the film’s other pair of Russian characters. It’s a tribute to how intriguing all three performers found the project that everyone learned to speak the language convincingly to get their parts.

Despite this international flavor, “Birthday Girl” is set in the very English Hertfordshire town of St. Albans, where young John Buckingham (Ben Chaplin of “The Truth About Cats and Dogs”) works long and tedious hours as a bank teller. A sad-eyed, timid soul whose biggest problem is an ant infestation in his tidy home, John despairs of finding a mate in the neighborhood. So, in an act he considers “quite brave,” he sends a video off to the endless steppes of Russia in search of a mail-order bride. “Someone you can really talk to” is what he’s looking for. After all, “communication is the key.”

When dark-haired Nadia shows up at the local airport, she is definitely not what John bargained for. Resembling a man-eating spiderwoman and not speaking a word of English, Nadia dresses a bit like a hooker and considers the Russian-English dictionary John helpfully provides as useful only for squashing those wayward ants.

Terrified of what he’s gotten into, John tries to return Nadia like an unsatisfactory Fortnum & Mason’s fruitcake. That proves tricky, especially after Nadia discovers and caters to his kinky sexual preferences. Alternately frightened, bewildered and delighted, John can’t decide if he’s fallen in love or just found a flesh-and-blood sex toy. And that’s just the start of his confusion.

When a besotted John plans a birthday party for Nadia, who should show up--and ask to stay a while--but her long-lost cousin Yuri (Kassovitz) and Yuri’s obstreperous new friend Alexei (Cassel). John, who doesn’t want to share Nadia with anyone, is aghast at the invasion of two feckless louts whose motto is “plans are for architects.” “Boisterous” is a mild word for this pair’s shenanigans, but the moment John finally feels he’s had enough is the point at which “Birthday Girl’s” plot really begins.

For, complex though it may sound, the above is merely a prelude to “Birthday Girl’s” main action. That surprising series of constantly changing events moves so fast--and so enjoyably--it’s hard to notice or really care that it doesn’t necessarily make a whole lot of sense.

Keeping us involved are the uniformly fine performances of this polyglot cast, starting with the convincingly Slavic and always entertaining Kidman, who has considerable fun as the strong-minded, intrepid woman no man can resist.

As for the men in her life, Chaplin is adept as the buttoned-down, follow-the-rules functionary who’s gotten himself into something wild, while Kassovitz and Cassel, friends in real life, add a believable touch of bizarre comradeship to their portrayal of stereotypical Russians on the make.

Though “Birthday Girl” is probably too unnerving and at times savage a relationship comedy to be a universal taste, its success on its own terms says a lot for the gifts of director-writer Butterworth. He guides us through the world of chaos and romantic confusion he’s created as if it’s the most natural place in the world. After a while, we actually believe it is.

*

MPAA rating: R, for sexuality and language. Times guidelines: some kinky sexuality and sudden bursts of mayhem.

‘Birthday Girl’

Nicole Kidman...Nadia

Ben Chaplin...John Buckingham

Vincent Cassel...Alexei

Mathieu Kassovitz...Yuri

Kate Evans...Clare

A Miramax Films and FilmFour presentation, in association with Mirage Enterprises, released by Miramax Films. Director Jez Butterworth. Producers Steve Butterworth, Diana Phillips. Screenplay Tom Butterworth, Jez Butterworth. Cinematographer Oliver Stapleton. Editor Christopher Tellefesen. Costumes Phoebe de Gaye. Music Stephen Warbeck. Running time: 1 hour, 33 minutes.

In limited release.