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Beyond the grave
Nils van der Linden
Posted Thu, 19 May 2005
Out of 5:
Here's a fascinating premise for a movie: a 10-year-old boy named Sean suddenly appears in the life of Anna (Nicole Kidman), who was widowed 10 years previously. The child claims to be her dead husband, also called Sean. And he knows all sorts of personal information that only a married couple would share.
'Birth' offers strong performances, arresting cinematography, an intriguing premise but ultimately a disappointing viewing experience. It's the kind of film that leaves you feeling frustrated, wishing that the individual elements, each strong in their own right, were held together in an equally accomplished manner.
But, although part of you ends up thinking 'so what?', the film does linger in your mind as you piece together the tattered conclusion or ponder what it suggests — the possibility of reincarnation.
Sean, played with sinister innocence by the young Cameron Bright (who starred as the equally disturbing little boy in 'Godsend'), throws Anna's sheltered life into disarray, highlighting that she's still not come to terms with her husband's death and causing doubt over her relationship with fiancé Joseph.
It's a feeling not better captured than in their visit to the theatre — a masterful scene of some two minutes that focuses on Kidman's face as she stares past the camera. Although she barely moves, the actress conveys the emotional maelstrom of her character with such aplomb that you're simply mesmerised.
It's so much more effective than Anna's overblown and irrational behaviour that later takes hold and threatens to derail the film and its sinister, highly stylised atmosphere. Long, empty passages; dark, clinical corridors; blankets of snow — 'Birth' turns the world of upper-class New York into a stark, alienating and disconcerting place
And then there's the scene selection, the director focusing on isolated incidents that do little to answer the audience's questions about Sean and his claims — so much so that you feel like shouting them out aloud. But perhaps this is a ploy to add mystery and a sense of vagueness to a resolution that, on the surface, seems like a cop-out.
It's an air that hangs over the whole of 'Birth' — an odd little movie that, without Kidman's involvement, probably wouldn’t have garnered much attention. It's not that the film is bad, just that it's not quite what it could have been.
