Birthday Girl: How 'Bout Some Stale Cheesecake?

From time to time, I get pressure from my family and friends to get married, get a real job, and have kids. They mean well. They really do. Of course, if they really wanna help, how about they put their money where their mouth is? Do what Ben Chaplin does in the new film Birthday Girl. Go on the Internet, log onto the From Russia With Love Web site, and order me a hot former Soviet bride who turns out to be ... Nicole Kidman!

OK, now, if I truly thought that could happen, I wouldn't be expecting friends and family to foot the bill. My hand would reach for my Visa card faster than it lunges for the radio dial anytime the first few notes of Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You" wail through the speakers.

Are you kidding me?! If guys could log onto the World Wide Web and order themselves up a Nicole, the days of female rule over the American male would be numbered ... numbered, I tell you!

Er, maybe not.

Chaplin plays John, a slightly nerdy bank employee who has grown tired of his porno stash and endless months of hand-to-gland combat. He wants to take chance and romance out of the equation (even though he works with a woman who clearly digs him), so he orders up the alluring Nadia. Unfortunately, when Nadia arrives, she can't speak a lick of English and she has her own share of hang-ups. John is about to send her back and demand a refund (Apparently, this guy does not have anyone in his life to grab him, shake him, and scream, "DUDE, YOU WERE SENT NICOLE KIDMAN IN THE FREAKIN' MAIL! WHO CARES IF SHE CAN'T UNDERSTAND A WORD YOU SAY! THANK JESUS! THANK HIM NOW!") But then Nadia discovers John's somewhat impressive, somewhat disturbing pornography collection and--to his surprise--embraces it. The next thing John knows, he's tied to a bed and that next Visa bill is starting to look damn worth it.

But bondage bliss does not last long. Two shifty men (Vincent Cassel and Mathieu Kassovitz) from Nadia's past show up to turn the second half of the film into a caper involving John's bank and a suitcase loaded with cash. Other plot twists follow that kill the fantasy even more.

This would be my luck, of course.

A few days ago, I had lunch with some friends and we discussed what our favorite "guilty-pleasure" movies are. Guilty-pleasure movies are basically those flicks that are--by all rights--bad movies, but every time you flip by them on cable you have to watch 20 or 30 minutes. You just have to! Among my favorite guilty pleasures are Hard to Kill, Roadhouse, and Superman IV. Birthday Girl is about to join that list. This is a terrible movie, folks. But damn if I didn't sit through the whole cheesy thing chomping my popcorn and buying it!

It's one of those movies you can go to and have loads of fun ragging on it afterward over a beer or a burger or both at the nearest diner. Chaplin's John is such a drip, such a panty-waisted twerp, that it's impossible to think of him as a hero. He is the idiot you constantly yell helpful advice at. He has the emotional complexity of a nerd from an actual porno movie. Late in the film, when the filmmakers give him these moments of strength and intestinal fortitude, it's just laughable. Even better, the two Russian con artists are played by a couple of French hams, so there's humor to be mined just repeating the lines back to the characters after they say them.

Yet, in all great bad guilty-pleasure movies there are things to admire, moments to sit and wait for and just howl with laughter at. Hard to Kill had Steven Seagal waking up from a seven-year coma and escaping a hospital. Roadhouse has bar fights every 10 minutes and Patrick Swayze muttering the great line: "Pain don't hurt." And Superman IV has Mariel Hemingway floating in outer space and NOT suffocating.

The pleasures of Birthday Girl are smaller. There's Ben Chaplin's porno stash CATEGORIZED. There's my dream girl Nicole Kidman speaking with a Russian accent. Best of all, there are the opening credits that reveal that Birthday Girl was written, directed, and produced by three brothers whose last name is Butterworth.

Like the syrup, Birthday Girl sat on Miramax's pantry shelf for more than two years before the studio decided to take it down and pour this thick, gooey mess of a movie into theaters. You gotta admire the strategy. Release Birthday Girl just when Nicole Kidman is riding a wave of superstardom thanks to Moulin Rouge, The Others, and The Divorce. I'm sure Kidman stands by her work. But I bet if this birthday girl could have just one wish right about now, it would be that her "new" film quickly make its way to Guilty Pleasure Movie Heaven (a.k.a. the nine stations of HBO).

Birthday Girl is rated R for adult language and sexuality.