Birthday Girl

Colour, 35mm
USA/United Kingdom, 2001, 93 min
Section: Horizons

Synopsis

John Buckingham lives a quiet life in a London suburb. He works as a bank clerk and likes to surf the web in his spare time. His only problem is that he’s never been lucky in love. Fed up with waiting for the right gal to come along out of the blue, John decides to take the bull by the horns and respond to an Internet ad offering Russian mail-order brides. His “Internet girl” is the delicate and lovely Nadia. Soon enough, however, John discovers to his unpleasant surprise that not only does Nadia not speak English, but that her behaviour is not quite what he expected. To top it all off, two of Nadia’s “cousins,” Yuri and Alexei, show up to help celebrate Nadia’s birthday, and they make themselves permanent guests in John’s house. As soon as John realizes what Nadia and her cousins are really about, his world is turned upside down. The "cousins" force him to rob the bank where he works.

About the director

Jez Butterworth (b. 1969, London) studied at Cambridge University. His first play, Mojo, which he co-wrote with his brother Tom, was staged at the Royal Court Theatre in 1995. The production received both public and critical acclaim, and Butterworth received the Olivier and Evening Standard’s Most Promising Playwright Awards. His feature-film debut (1997) was an adaptation of this play. His second feature is Birthday Girl (2001).