Staff members Melissa Rauch (MR) and Paul Camarata (PC) review Jez Butterworth's "Birthday Girl" in a conversational style unrivaled since the days of Vaudeville and Who's on First. Enjoy the show.

PC: So, Nicole Kidman. Me, you, and all of that dewy pale skin meet again. Oh baby.

MR: Isn't she a little tall for you, Paul? Anyway, in "Birthday Girl," Kidman stars as a Russian mail order bride named Nadia who's full of surprises. As in her recent films "Moulin Rouge" and "The Others," she develops another unique character to demonstrate her range, this time by donning a Russian accent and wearing more mascara than Tammy Faye Baker.

For the past few years, she's seemed determined to prove to everyone that she was more than just Mrs. Tom Cruise. With all the current buzz surrounding her personal and professional life, Kidman raises Butterworth's film from obscurity. Her fine performance helps the audience overlook the ludicrous plot and makes this middle of the road film somewhat enticing.

PC: "Birthday" opens with lonely bank clerk John Buckingham (Ben Chaplin) posing for a webcam while searching for a girl to call his own, and from there revolves around the consequences of both his choices and his lust. When John erects — woops — I mean elects to ignore the age-old adage, "Beware Ruskies bearing bum," he is burnt by the heat of passion.

When the forlorn Nadia enters the scene, John quickly realizes she is not the babushka he chose. Despite his usual deference to rules and the status quo, he decides against correcting the error after discovering just how saucy, and willing, Nadia can be in night clothes.

The real hijinks begin when her long lost buddies, bilingual Yuri and thuggish Alexei, arrive on the scene pouring Stoli and smoking plenty of Marb reds.

MR: Kudos to two Frenchman, Vincent Cassel and Mathieu Kassovitz, for portraying Russians so well.

PC: Also for Kidman, a native Aussie, who smoothly sheds her down under and borrowed American accents in order to sound like a native Russian.

MR: I agree that Kidman's Russian dialect is spot on, but then again, what do I know about Russians? Boris, Natasha, Yakov Smirnoff. With these as my only references, I can be as easily duped as John.

PC: No, I've seen "The Hunt for Red October" enough times to know fake Moscowese when I hear it. And la femme NiKidman passes the bill.

MR: Yes, her performance is so convincing it almost lets the audience forget how ludicrous the plot is. Almost. Luckily, Chaplin's doltish character is there to wake everyone up from this temporary insanity. His naive, perverted, and irrational behavior is unrealistic and annoying. And while the script may call for John to play the thankless role of the dupe, the character gets no help from Chaplin's shallow performance. He has this blank stare stuck on his face no matter what emotion he's trying to express.

PC: Chaplin may be a nobody opposite Kidman, but Butterworth still succeeds in striking a pleasant balance between her and the rest of the cast.

Butterworth also chooses wisely in creating a soundtrack that opts away from obtrusive background noise, melding music and silence with fewer seams than the word "Eurasian." He even resists the temptation to wedge in the old musical standards "Happy Birthday!" or the Beatles' "Birthday" into the action.

Butterworth has ample opportunity to overstuff his frames with images of speedy sex and violence, but takes a minimalist approach to these moments so that the plot is slowly inflated with tension rather than detonating with the impulse of a cartoon Acme plunger.

MR: The background silence, a bumpy hand-held camera and numerous long takes do help add a layer of realism, but there are still too many plot holes to make the story plausible. This really is a simple romantic comedy trying to wear the dress of a racy, suspense thriller.

PC: So Butterworth's no auteur.

MR: Not yet anyway. The Brothers Butterworth, co-writers Jez and Tom, try to shake up the romantic comedy genre with an unusual premise, some interesting Russians and a little flashy camera movements, but the story is just too silly to work. The style is all for show to disguise the lack of substance. The supposedly kinky sex is barely shown, the violence lies entirely in threats instead of action, and the ending is too predictable to be suspenseful.

Still, if you can suspend your disbelief for a little while, you can enjoy the movie on a superficial level. That's why the film repeats the mantra "Trust and let go." One might think the statement refers to John, but it's really a warning to the viewers that to enjoy the next 93 minutes they should leave common sense behind and just go with the flow.

PC: You say. For me, the pattern that emerges from all of the film's objects and images reveals that it is built to resemble a poor man's 007 flick. Chaplin is a bumbling boyish Brit who, if you can imagine, is equal parts James Bond and Mr. Bean. He drives a tiny sports coupe, but is awkward around women; he races valiantly to the rescue, but stumbling all the way. That John finds Nadia on an Internet service called "From Russia With Love," is only the most obvious tribute from Team Butterworth to the 1963 installment of the formula spy series. The one Bondian motif that "Girl" lacks is some stupid theme song over the opening credits, until — voila! —the closing credits roll and there's a song entitled, that's right, "Something Stupid."

MR: "Stupid" being the operative word. Sure, the classic Bond film relies more on style than substance, but it thrives on the witty camp and charm that "Birthday Girl" fails to achieve.

PC: Butterworth adds original material to all the Bond allusions, but admittedly still ends with an ambivalent script that never fully commits to being either a classic caper tale or a genuine love-suspense story. Its short running time is indicative of a lack of depth, but "Girl," with the help of a typically svelte Kidman, will capture enough attention to hold its own in this frigid period of cinema sweeps until the next deluge of blockbuster releases in the spring.

MR: Sorry, despite Kidman's talents, it's not worth your time.

Melissa's rating -- Two and a half shamrocks (out of five)

Paul's rating -- Three shamrocks

By the time they finished collaborating on this review, Melissa and Paul were wishing they had never heard the name Butterworth. And they were eating pancakes at the time. Contact them at mrauch@nd.edu and pcamarat@nd.edu.

• Critics attend Kidman's `Birthday'
  
• Avoid `Slackers' at all costs
  
• French `Brotherhood' is made for America