Unlike it's uninspiring title suggests, Birth is actually a fairly inventive and fairly intriguing movie. Birth works from a very offbeat, and therefore interesting, premise that sees a young boy of ten turn up at an engaged woman's house claiming to be Sean; her former, and now dead, husband. This sort of premise offers a great many opportunities for the story teller to show how inventive they can be by making the way that the story pans out as interesting as possible; but, unfortunately, it has to be said that the writing team here didn't do that. It is definitely the screenplay that is this film's main weakness. The way that the plot moves is, at times, illogical and the way that it's paced isn't very well rounded at all. Parts of the story move at lightning pace, while other parts barely move. Adding to the problems on the writing side is the dialogue. There are two types of dialogue in this movie; one is silly and unrealistic, and the other is severely underdone - the writers seemed to want as little dialogue as possible in as many scenes as possible.
The film is very ambiguous throughout, and the lack of dialogue does, on many occasions, help to add to the ambiguity and therefore the intrigue and mystery of the story. The silent characters also help the film to be more haunting - and that is an element that the movie should have been keener to capitalise on. However, the lack of dialogue renders the film very sluggish at times, and although when the characters don't say anything, it builds the tension; it's not the good kind of tension, but a rather irritating spin-off. Some scenes will have you on the edge of your seat, but instead of making you want to see what WILL happen, you merely want to see ANYTHING happen. Cameron Bright, the young star of the film delivers a nice performance, however, and he might turn out to be an actor to watch. Ironically, it's the seasoned Nicole Kidman that lets the film down where acting is concerned. I like Kidman, but here she seems like she cant really be bothered, and, although the dialogue could be to blame, she looks out of place all to often and just ends up making her silly lines sound even more silly. On the whole; Birth is a good film. It's not good enough to be considered one of the best of 2004, but it's just a bit too good to be completely ignored. I just wish I could like it more.
The film is very ambiguous throughout, and the lack of dialogue does, on many occasions, help to add to the ambiguity and therefore the intrigue and mystery of the story. The silent characters also help the film to be more haunting - and that is an element that the movie should have been keener to capitalise on. However, the lack of dialogue renders the film very sluggish at times, and although when the characters don't say anything, it builds the tension; it's not the good kind of tension, but a rather irritating spin-off. Some scenes will have you on the edge of your seat, but instead of making you want to see what WILL happen, you merely want to see ANYTHING happen. Cameron Bright, the young star of the film delivers a nice performance, however, and he might turn out to be an actor to watch. Ironically, it's the seasoned Nicole Kidman that lets the film down where acting is concerned. I like Kidman, but here she seems like she cant really be bothered, and, although the dialogue could be to blame, she looks out of place all to often and just ends up making her silly lines sound even more silly. On the whole; Birth is a good film. It's not good enough to be considered one of the best of 2004, but it's just a bit too good to be completely ignored. I just wish I could like it more.