birth

Like the waterbirth in the fourth scene I arrive at Birth gawking, gasping, heart-stopped and hopeful. Great trailers can mean terrible movies; and I hate hate hate Nicole Kidman in the same way every child does—because she's prettier than me, smarter than me, and her teariest longshot packs a tougher punch than I can stomach. (Also, my lunch money is low and she seems to be rolling in it.)

Birth seems an easy movie to make: there's a heart-faced protagonist with a dark backstory—her aryan husband died ten years prior, and she's been duped to fall for some highbrow with a widow's peak as sinister as Count Chocula's. But when a doe-eyed Cameron Bright wanders into their perfect engagement party claiming to be the dead Sean, the film doesn't fall into a pit of gooey gravitas. Anticipating an audience who would laugh at the screen for something so phony, director Jonathan Glazer ( Sexy Beast ) has thrown in a jostling cynical sister and her snobby, psychiatrist hubby who quiz the whiz-kid and still don't fall for it. On the other hand, Anna (Kidman) tongues his ice-cream and watches him climb into bath—her bath. But this film is not about the plot—which is good enough that we never quite figure things out—it's fucking BE-A-UT-IFUL.

Three-minute long shots of Kidman's pretty face recall, as much of the body of the film does as wel, a Mia Farrow of Rosemary's Baby days. Then, the camera swings low to show us little Sean's little, low world, and reveals in the meat of the film a dark, wealthy New York that dresses in black and blows out tapered candles like it's their job. This is not sugar-coated or candy-colored, it's a world tinged in a jealousy as green as their silk wall-paper, a golden hope as honey-colored as every cream molding. Black maids who huff and doormen who puff are the voyeurs of this mad spectacle, along with us and all our dopey cynicism.

Then there's the music, which rumbles under the film like a strip of road; which guts us like a low, perfect punch. My heart beats with every wiped tear, every closeup of poor, little, dead Sean's enormous blue eyes. Re-born into something terrible, I am on the playground again, and slurring my words: 'How could you do this to me, Nicole? How could you be so...perfect.'