Sophia/Nadia, Birthday Girl (2001)
British dramedy Birthday Girl allowed Nicole to flex her underdeveloped funny bone in the dual roles of a mail order bride and her grifter alter ego. Lonely bank clerk John (Ben Chaplin) entrusts the internet with his search for love and falls for the profile of mail order bride Nadia. Nadia arrives in St. Albans with a voracious sexual appetite and the inability to speak a word of English. Initially shy, and somewhat in awe, John soon warms to his mysterious partner. When she is surprised on her birthday by a visit from her cousin Yuri (Mathieu Kassovitz) and his good friend Alexei, John welcomes the men with open arms. But the celebration takes a turn for the weird when Alexei (Vincent Cassel) loses his temper and John begins to wonder if he really knows his bride at all…
Though superficially a blended rom com and thriller, Birthday Girl is a satisfyingly dark comedy with a quick, biting script. The complex dynamics between Kidman and Cassel and Kidman and Chaplin are especially effective as Nicole’s Nadia peels of her metaphoric mask to reveal English speaking conwoman Sophia – Alexei’s girlfriend and partner in crime. Whipping between caustic Russian and English dialogue, she delivers the punchy dialogue with quite exquisite comic timing without once dropping the caged animal cast from her eyes. This is Nicole Kidman at her sharpest and smartest.
