Sean's voiceover at the beginning: Okay, let me say this...let me say this. If I lost my wife, and, and uh, the next day a little bird landed on my windowsill, looked me right in the eye, and in plain English said, "Sean, it's me, Anna," what could I say? I guess I'd believe her. Or I'd want to. I'd be stuck with a bird. But other than that, no, I'm a man of science. I just don't believe that mumbo-jumbo. Now, that's gonna have to be the last question. I need to go running before I head home.
Birth is Jonathan Glazer's second movie (after Sexy Beast). Nicole Kidman plays Anna, who has struggled to recover from the death of her husband, Sean. Ten years later, though, she's engaged to Joseph (Danny Huston) and seems much happier. But, on the night of her engagement, a mysterious young boy (Cameron Bright) comes to her and tells her that he's the reincarnation of her dead husband.
Tropes
- Birth-Death Juxtaposition: The ultimate example, as "Sean" claims to be the reincarnation of Anna's dead husband.
- Bittersweet Ending: Sean is able to move on from the incident with the help of a therapist and resumes being a well-adjusted boy. Anna, however, hasn't gotten over the trauma of the reopened wounds and has a breakdown at her own wedding.
- Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: Anna has red hair, her sister Laura is brunette, and their mother Eleanor (and Sean's mistress Clara) are blonde.
- Book Ends: The film opens and closes with a birth (Sean Jr.'s birth, and the birth of Anna's niece). Eleanor dryly comments that maybe the niece is Sean.
- Cool Old Lady: Eleanor, Anna's elderly mother, isn't putting up with any of this reincarnation nonsense. In the end, she even flatly tells the younger Sean that she never liked the older Sean.
- Creator Cameo: Milo Addica, one of the screenwriters, plays Jimmy, the doorman at the building Anna and Joseph live in.
- Downer Beginning: The film opens with the older Sean collapsing and dying during a jog.
- Easily Forgiven: Despite the fact that Anna has essentially cheated on Joseph with a ten-year-old boy, he still forgives her. Even after she runs away during their wedding!
- Homage: The movie is full of homages to Rosemary's Baby. Both have a very straight-faced approach to their high-concept material, are set in a Big Applesauce version of New York City, and have a female protagonist with cropped hair struggling with young creepy boys who may mean them harm.
- Hourglass Plot: Sean starts off as a Creepy Child Stalker with a Crush to Anna while she resists him. Then Sean Jr learns that the older Sean was having an affair with Clara, which causes him to change his mind about being a reincarnation. By then, Anna has been convinced that Sean is a reincarnation and tells him that they will run away together until they can remarry.
- Leave the Camera Running: When Anna and Joseph go to a concert after "Sean" collapses (when he refuses to tell Anna he'll leave her alone), the camera holds on Anna's face as she begins to wonder if "Sean" really is who he says he is.
- Left Hanging: It's left deliberately unclear whether Sean is a reincarnation of the adult Sean. Clara insists that if he were really Sean, he'd have come to her first, but there are details (such as who told Anna that Santa wasn't real) that arguably wouldn't have come from the letters, and the older Sean did remain married to Anna, with Clara having some personal bias regarding where Sean's affections truly lay.
- The Mourning After: Anna has clearly struggled to get over the death of Sean. She's only managed it a full decade after his death and, even then, "Sean's" appearance pulls her straight back into her grief.
- My God, What Have I Done?: The subtext of Anna's remark when Sean is in the bathtub that "you're just a little boy."
- The Oner: The opening shot of Sean running in the park at the beginning of the movie, right before he collapses and dies.
- Perilous Marriage Proposal: "Sean" appears (or reappears) in Anna's life on the night that she gets engaged to Joseph, causing her to spiral.
- Precocious Crush: Deconstructed. Sean is very Wise Beyond His Years and insists that the adult Anna is his wife. At first, Anna is touched by what she assumes to be an innocent crush, but when it emerges he's serious, his presence becomes that of a much more unsettling Stalker with a Crush even if he's only ten.
- Reincarnation Romance: Deconstructed. Sean Jr wants this with Anna, which ignores that he's nine and she's in her thirties or forties. She resists for a while, then comes to believe him and agree with it. By then, he's changed his mind.
- The Reveal: Clara, Sean's sister-in-law, was secretly having an affair with him. The gift she buried in the opening were love letters than Anna sent Sean, which Sean gifted to Clara unopened as proof of his love for only her. The younger Sean unearthed them and read them, proving that he was only working off of Anna's letters, and is not actually Sean's reincarnation... probably.
- Rich Suitor, Poor Suitor: Class differences are played with subtly. Jason is a wealthy man who can afford to take Anna to the opera and shop for expansive apartments with her, whereas Sean lives in a small apartment with his working-class parents (who describe Anna's family as "having money"). This also seemed to have been the case with Anna and the older Sean, as her family is obviously wealthy and has a longtime housekeeper, whereas Sean's brother lives in a modest apartment and is married to Clara, who is rougher around the edges and had Sean's love.
- Riddle for the Ages:
- The big one: is Sean Jr a reincarnation of Anna's husband?
- How does Sean Jr know all that information about Anna and Sean?
- Did the older Sean love Anna?
- How much does Anna still believe Sean Jr is a reincarnation of her husband?
- Sanity Slippage: Both Clifford and Clara seem taken aback when Clara visits their apartment and begins explaining the situation with Sean, only to descend into babbling about how she thinks he could be the real deal. Subverted when it's revealed that Clara, who was secretly having an affair with the older Sean, was perfectly willing to accept and explore the idea of Sean being reincarnated, and was disappointed to realize that this wasn't the case.
- Snow Means Death:
- There is a lot of snow on the ground when Sean has a heart attack and dies while running.
- Downplayed for the rest of the movie. It's winter and melting snow can be seen in some scenes as Anna struggles with the reminder of Sean's death (and if he really has been reincarnated), but it's much less obvious.
- Stalker with a Crush: Joseph's engagement speech, though meant to be playful, inherently reveals that he essentially badgered Anna repeatedly to agree to a date and to marry him.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Clara's hasty, slapdash burial of Anna's letters leads Sean to find them, and nearly destroy Anna's life and relationship in the process.
- Woman Scorned: Clara was so jealous of Sean's refusal to leave Anna that even a decade later, she spitefully secures an invitation to Anna's engagement (despite a widowed Anna still deeply feeling Sean's loss) and intends to gift Anna's unopened love letters to Sean. Fortunately, at the last minute, she thinks better of it and instead buys Anna an expensive gift.
- Would Hurt a Child:
- Joseph — frustrated by Sean repeatedly kicking his chair, but also simmering with rage at his intrusion into his and Anna's lives — throws a tantrum and lunges at Sean, dragging him into a room so that he can spank him.
- Clara is so angry at Sean aping her deceased lover that she repeatedly roughs him up when he tries to flee.
- Your Cheating Heart: Sean was carrying on an affair with Clara, his sister-in-law, at the time of his death.
