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In 2004 Jonathan Glazer followed up his debut, the crime film Sexy Beast, with the deeply polarizing Birth. Nicole Kidman stars as Anna, a recently engaged Upper East Sider whose world is deeply shaken when a 10-year-old boy crashes a family party claiming to be the reincarnation of her late husband, Sean. After initially dismissing the child, Anna finds herself inexplicably drawn to him as he recounts the intimate details of a sweeping, intoxicatingly obsessive love she has yet to fully recover from. 

Many critics were quick to dismiss the film: too controversial, too muddled, even creepy. But over the years many have taken another look, discovering a breathtaking poignancy.

In this discussion, Veronica Fitzpatrick will explore all that makes Birth a truly underappreciated masterpiece: the assured cinematography of the late Harris Savides; that operatic, nearly two-minute close-up of Kidman in one of her finest performances to date; a simmering and unsettling score by Alexandre Desplat; and, as Fitzpatrick notes, “All ways the film transcends the knee-jerk scandalizing quality of its premise.”