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 extreme 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 mixed reviews.
Plot
The film begins with a blank screen, accompanied by a voiceover of a man lecturing to an unseen audience, mentioning offhandedly that he disbelieves in reincarnation. We then see this same man running through Central Park, where he eventually slows and has a heart attack, dying on the pathway. The scene cuts to a newborn as he is raised by a doctor's hands into the world.
In the next scene, 10 years later, we see Anna (Nicole Kidman) standing in front of the running man's grave. We find out that Anna lost her husband—Sean—10 years before. She now has a new boyfriend named Joseph (Danny Huston) , who has recently proposed to her.
At a party celebrating the engagement, a married couple, Clara and Clifford—Anna's friends from her days with Sean—attend. While Clifford (Peter Stormare) goes into the party, Clara (Anne Heche) excuses herself, saying she has forgotten to wrap her gift for Anna and must do so before entering the party. Instead, she secretly buries her gift beneath a nearby tree and buys a mirror instead. This is witnessed by a young boy (Cameron Bright) waiting in the lobby of the apartment building where the party is held. This scene is significant later in the film.
Later, we see a party for Anna's aging mother (played by Lauren Bacall) where a 10-year-old boy (the same who had been in the lobby days earlier) follows in two other guests. He asks Anna into another room and says he has something to tell her. She is amused, and takes him into the kitchen, where he claims to be her deceased husband, Sean.
At first Anna dismisses, and is even offended by, the boy's claim, and she escorts him brusquely out of the apartment. She recounts his wild claim to her family, who seem vaguely amused. It is only the next day, when Anna receives a letter from the boy warning "Don't marry Joseph" in childish script, that she begins to realize the boy is not simply joking, but believes he is actually her reincarnated dead husband.
That night, preparing to attend a performance of Wagner's Die Walküre, Anna and Joseph discuss the boy and the letter. It becomes clear that Joseph is slightly peeved at the boy's persistence. He calls down to the front desk to ask who, in fact, the boy is (as the watchman Jimmy has professed to know the boy and has told Anna the boy's name is, in fact, Sean) and Sean himself (the boy) answers. Joseph goes down to investigate.
In a fit of anger, Joseph asks Sean who he is and why he is insistent on claiming to be the reincarnated Sean. He is told Sean's father (Ted Levine) is upstairs giving a music lesson, and he takes the boy to the second floor and asks to speak with the father, who is perplexed and wonders what trouble his son may have caused. Anna appears by Joseph's side, and asks the boy Sean not to disturb her any more, saying to him "You are hurting me. Do you understand?"
Sean, however, refuses to recant his story, even at the insistence of his father to never bother Anna again. Anna and Joseph leave for the opera, satisfied that they have made an impression. However, as they enter the elevator, Anna glimpses the young Sean collapsing in a heap in his father's arms.
At the opera, in a three-minute, continuous unbroken shot, we see Anna and Joseph seat themselves and the camera pans to a close-up of Anna's face. It is here we realize she has begun to believe the boy, to believe that he really may be some manifestation of her dead husband.
An unspecified day or so later, we see Sean scolded at school by his teacher. He calmly walks out and goes to a phone booth to call Anna, and leaves a message on her apartment answering machine, which her mother overhears. Later that day we see Anna eating with her mother, who offhandedly mentions the message that Sean wanted to meet Anna in the park, and that she "would know where." Anna's mother asks pointedly whether Anna and Joseph did in fact tell Sean to leave them alone, and Anna says yes, they did. She continues to eat calmly, not betraying her emotions, though we see her in the next scene hurrying to Central Park.
In Central Park Sean is beneath a footbridge on the exact spot on the pathway where Anna's husband died ten years earlier. She scolds him and tells him he should not play games with people's feelings. He calmly insists he is telling the truth, and offers to submit to a series of questions to prove himself. Anna asks him "Who told me there wasn't a Santa Claus?" Sean replies "I'll know them when I see them."
Later, we see Anna's brother-in-law Bob (Arliss Howard) asking Sean questions, recording his responses on tape. He is able to answer frankly in detail all the questions, even giving private information of the type no one else would know, such as intimate details of Anna and Sean's sex life.
Sean is brought to Anna's by his fretful mother (Cara Seymour) (whom he has earlier told "I'm not your stupid son anymore.") She agrees to leave him with Anna overnight so that Anna can "break the spell."
Anna's family becomes worried, particularly her sister Laura (Alison Elliott), who treats the young Sean with contempt. He is able, however, to identify various parts of the apartment, such as his former desk where he worked, and when Anna's aunt appears and asks if he knows her, he says "You're the one who told Anna there wasn't a Santa Claus." Even so, everyone is very reasonably doubtful of him—everyone, that is, but Anna.
Anna picks up Sean from school and instead of taking him home, as she has promised his mother, she spends the evening with him. Joseph, waiting for Anna at a house they are to view together, begins to feel worried not merely about the boy, but now about Anna's odd behavior.
Joseph's jealousy is made plain when, at a small recital of a quartet meant to celebrate their engagement, he physically attacks Sean, and spanks him in front of everyone, to Anna's horror. Joseph is pulled off the boy, who runs out. Anna follows Sean, and, in one of the film's controversial scenes (the other a scene where Anna and Sean sit naked {though no nudity is shown} in a bathtub together), kisses the young Sean on the lips—this is witnessed by her brother-in-law, who embarrassedly pretends not to have seen the act.
Anna has asked her old friends (the married couple who we saw in the film's early scenes) to come to her apartment and meet Sean, to reaffirm somehow that he is or isn't the Sean they all knew. Clifford, whom Sean runs to and embraces, is embarrassed by the scene and tells Anna pointedly, if sadly: "That isn't Sean." Anna responds with conviction: "Yes it is."
Clara arrives slightly later, and is met by Sean at the door. She shows him her dirty hands, and asks him to escort her to the bathroom so she may wash them. She secretly writes her address for him and says "I've moved." The young Sean says cryptically: "Don't tell Anna." We are not sure what secret they share.
Sean visits Clara at her home, carrying a backpack. She asks "Are they in there?" and opens the pack, in which are many letters, which we discover are love letters written by Anna to Sean, who never opened them. Clara had kept them, sealed, having received them by Sean as a token of his true love for her, who we learn was his mistress. "I'm your lover," Clara says to Sean. "Anna is my lover," he replies. Clara answers: "Anna is your wife. I'm your lover."
We learn that Sean dug up and read the letters left by Clara, a gift she had intended to spitefully give Anna on the night of her engagement party. It is revealed she has hated Anna for many years, jealous of the fact that Sean would not leave her. However, her conscience prevented her from actually going through with her hurtful plan, and she bought a mirror instead.
Sean tries to leave with the letters, but Clara prevents him from taking them. He runs out in a state of confusion, having been told now that if he had really been Sean (which Clara does not believe him to be) he would have come to Clara and not Anna to express his love. Sean wanders the city aimlessly, now in a state of confusion as to who he is.
Anna arrives home, Joseph having moved out of the house in a jealous rage. She is told Sean has arrived and his mother is on the way to collect him. Anna finds Sean soaking in the tub disconsolately, and reveals to him that she has a plan for them to run away together until he is of legal age to marry her. He tells her, quietly, "I'm not Sean," giving the reason for this that "I love you." His rationale is that if he were really Sean he would have loved Clara, and since he loves Anna he must not be the reincarnated Sean.
In a fit of anger and hysteria Anna roughly calls the boy a liar, but he is unfazed.
Later, we see Anna apologizing to Joseph, as she has been advised by her mother. They are married at the beach (where she met Sean, her first husband) and during the photo shoot we hear a voiceover of the young Sean (who, in a cut scene, we see at his elementary school getting his photo taken as well) who has written a long letter of apology to Anna, wondering why he had his delusion that he was her husband. His letter, however, does not admit to having lied to Anna or to having deliberately attempted to deceive her. Rather, he professes he truly believed his claim but has been convinced of its impossibility.
Anna, in her wedding dress and in front of the wedding photographer, Joseph at her side, becomes unsteady as she remembers the letter, and in the final scene we see her wandering in heartbroken grief in the surf. She wades in anguish in the sea, still in her wedding dress, and Joseph calmly comes to her side, coaxing her out of the waves, and holds her, her eyes focused inconsolably somewhere in the distance.
Cast
Production
Director Jonathan Glazer was interested in making a film about "the idea of eternal love" and a "mystery of the heart".[1] While writing the script, he was not interested in making a ghost story or a "paranormal piece".[2] He envisioned a fairy tale structure early on.[3] 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.".[4] 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.[4] 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.[4] 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.[4]
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.[5] 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".[1] However, he met with Kidman and realized that "she was ready to inhabit the role".[1] The more he talked to Kidman about her character, he would rewrite the script on weekends, tailoring it specifically for her.[3] To show Anna in mourning both externally and internally, Glazer gave her short hair, spare wardrobe and short, clipped speech.[5] The director explained Anna's appearance as "somebody who had sort of let all glamor go and sexuality go".[6] 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.[5]
Addica and Glazer often wrote scenes the day before they were shot, giving them to the actors on the actual day they were shooting.[4]
Reception
Birth debuted at the 2004 Venice Film Festival where its first press screening was greeted with widely reported booing[7] and catcalls[1]. Glazer responded, "People are a bit polarised by it, which is healthy".[1]
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.[8]
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".[9] 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".[10] In his review for the New York Daily News, Jack Mathews called the film, "corny, plodding, implausible and - on occasion - seriously creepy".[11] 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".[12] 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."[13]
Controversy
The film generated controversy due to a scene wherein Kidman shares a bath with Bright, both apparently naked.[1] 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.[14] 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."[1]
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."[15] 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".[15] Kidman downplayed Bacall's remarks and said, "I certainly don't feel like a big star in Hollywood".[15]
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."[12] That the young Sean knows precisely where the adult Sean died, for example, cannot be explained by his having memorized the love letters.
References
- ^ a b c d e f g Johnston, Sheila (October 29, 2004). "Giving Birth to a Scandal". Daily Telegraph. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2004/10/29/bfglaz29.xml. Retrieved on 2008-06-03.
- ^ Epstein, Daniel Robert (November 4, 2004). "Interview with Jonathan Glazer (Birth)". Suicide Girls. http://suicidegirls.com/words/Jonathan+Glazer/. Retrieved on 2008-06-03.
- ^ a b "About A Boy". New York Daily News. October 24, 2004.
- ^ a b c d e Calhoun, Dave (October 26, 2004). "Interview with Jonathan Glazer". Time Out. http://www.timeout.com/film/news/157.html. Retrieved on 2008-06-03.
- ^ a b c "Brace Yourself for . . . Birth". The Cinema Source. February 2005.
- ^ "Birth Control". IGN FilmForce. October 29, 2004. http://movies.ign.com/articles/561/561920p1.html. Retrieved on 2008-06-03.
- ^ Gritten, David. "Kidman didn't deserve the boos – it's a stylish film". Daily Telegraph. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2004/09/10/bfven10.xml. Retrieved on 2008-06-03.
- ^ "Birth". Box Office Mojo. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=birth.htm. Retrieved on 2008-04-22.
- ^ Ansen, David (November 8, 2004). "Snap Judgement". Newsweek. http://www.newsweek.com/id/55647. Retrieved on 2008-04-22.
- ^ O'Sullivan, Michael (October 29, 2004). "Irreparable Birth Defects". Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2004/10/29/AR2005033115930.html. Retrieved on 2008-04-22.
- ^ Mathews, Jack (October 29, 2004). "Birth". New York Daily News.
- ^ a b Ebert, Roger (October 29, 2004). "Birth". Chicago Sun-Times. http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041028/REVIEWS/41006003/1023. Retrieved on 2008-04-22.
- ^ Scott, A.O. (October 29, 2004). "A Visitor From Betwixt Shows Up in Between". New York Times. http://movies.nytimes.com/2004/10/29/movies/29birt.html?_r=1&oref=slogin. Retrieved on 2008-04-22.
- ^ FilmStew.com • Giving Birth to Controversy
- ^ a b c Born, Matt (September 9, 2004). "Bacall delivers a legendary snub to Kidman". Daily Telegraph. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/1471380/Bacall-delivers-a-legendary-snub-to-Kidman.html. Retrieved on 2008-06-03.
External links
