Redundant and unnecessary.

One of my all time favorites.

It is a performances centric movie

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

In this review, I thought I'd offer some insight to other viewers on how I understood this movie.Warning- major spoilers ahead.I feel there's two possible explanations for this movie.1. Sean is not really Sean. Sean's father was a tutor in the building and Sean hung around in the lobby while his father was working. He followed the woman to the park and unearthed the box containing the letters Anna wrote her husband, and through them discovered personal, intimate details that only Anna would know and was able to trick everyone into thinking he was Sean. When the kid saw Clara at the door, he wasn't taken aback because he recognised her as his past lover but as the woman he had followed who buried the box. Clara showing her dirty hands was the dead giveaway of this. It indicated that she had been digging in the park looking for the box where she had buried it and couldn't find it, and she knew he had the box. When Sean said "don't tell Anna", he was referring to not telling her that he is a fraud and had been deceiving Anna. As for whether he was intentionally deceiving her, he's a 10- year-old kid with a wild imagination and he happened to share the same name as the man Anna had addressed the letters to. It could be that he got carried away with the fantasy that he was Sean. The only inconsistency in this account is how he would know things like where Sean died or how he recognised his desk or the lady who told Anna there was no santa. We don't know how much Anna revealed in the letters and I suppose he could have come across some old newspaper clippings or spoken to someone who had informed him of where Sean died. The rest could be lucky guesses. I think the point of this account is how easily people can be deceived into believing the supernatural in times of emotional distress, grief and desperation. And as Sean's character indicated at the start of the movie, he doesn't believe in all that "mumbo jumbo" and is a man of science. Also, the point was that the kid was representing the idealised version of Sean Anna had carried around all these years, not the real Sean who was unfaithful. So maybe the fake kid Sean was metaphoric of the real Sean, who was also a fake. 2. Sean is really Sean. Sean was an ordinary, 10-year-old kid who was hanging around the lobby while his father was tutoring like on any other day. But then he spotted Clara, his lover from his past life and started to remember everything. Clara was his true love because he had probably hung around that lobby many times before and had seen Anna come in and out of the building but his past memories had not been triggered by her because she's not the one he truly loved. It was only when Sean saw Clara, who admittedly had not visited Anna in the past 10 years that his past life memories were triggered, and he followed her into the park. When he opened the letters that were previously unopened as proof he loved Clara more, he started to rediscover all the love he had for Anna, presumably before his affair with Clara had started. When Sean saw Clara again at the door, he recognised her and remembered the affair he had been suppressing since rediscovering his love for Anna and when he said "don't tell Anna", he was referring to not telling her about the affair. Although this is later contradicted when he doesn't recognise her and asks her who she is at her apartment. If he was the real Sean and he did not recognise Clara then what didn't he want Clara to tell Anna? This is a major plot hole in account 2 and makes me think the first account must be true and the kid is not really Sean. Unless he just had a moment of recollection and then suppressed it afterwards because it was too painful for him to admit to himself that he had betrayed Anna. Also, perhaps seeing Clara didn't trigger his past life memories because he really loved her but because deceiving Anna was the major regret in his past life, his "unfinished business" or "karma" that led him to Anna to ultimately help her see who he really was. When he came to terms with his past actions, he realised he didn't deserve Anna and decided to tell her he wasn't really Sean to spare her feelings and in a roundabout way of saying that if he really loved her, he wouldn't have betrayed her so he can't really be the person she thought he was to her, as described in the letters she wrote that he never opened. So Sean's purpose of becoming reincarnated was to allow Anna to move on with her life and let go of her love for Sean, something which would have happened anyway as Clara had planned to gift the unopened letters to Anna. However, ultimately both Clara and Sean were too cowardly to admit this to Anna and perhaps that is why she is seen distressed at the beach after marrying someone else, still unable to let go of Sean. Alternatively, perhaps the point of this second account was that Sean wanted to come back as a better version of himself and not make the same mistakes, hence his comment "I'm not Sean because I love you". What he meant by this is he is unable to face up to his past self and accept he was a person who could do that to someone he loved. And ultimately he ended up deceiving himself in his second life the same way he deceived Anna in his last, believing he was someone he was not just as Anna did.

'Birth' has a mixed to negative critical reaction, although Roger Ebert and Slant Magazine thought very highly of it, and the audience reaction is also very much polarising. Some love or appreciate 'Birth', others disliked it or were perplexed by it.Seeing 'Birth', count me in as somebody who has high appreciation for it, despite not completely loving it and acknowledging that it has flaws. It is Jonathan Glazer's least accessible and most divisive film ('Under the Skin' is also polarising but was criminally acclaimed, unlike 'Birth') and is not his best film (that's his most accessible film 'Sexy Beast'), but it's his most underrated to me. Not as good as 'Sexy Beast' but despite the much lower rating there is a marginal preference to it than 'Under the Skin', which was still a good film.The film is not perfect by all means. Its weak point is the ending, although it is heart-breaking and delicate it also leaves too many questions unanswered, too ambiguous and feels abrupt. More could have been done with Anne Heche's role, which was a little underdeveloped, Anne Heche admittedly does a great job. The dialogue is minimal, a good choice, but when it appears it's a little corny.Didn't actually think at all that the film meanders in pacing, it is deliberate but essential to the story's atmosphere and adds a good deal. Was too transfixed by how well the film was made and acted to find it dull. Nor did Cameron Bright come over as wooden or without personality, it's a subtle but chillingly effective.If one has to pick three particularly great things, it's the production values, the music score and Nicole Kidman. 'Birth' is exceptionally well made, although with heavy reliance on close ups it's very elegantly shot and sumptuously produced and designed. The acclaimed close up of Kidman's face at the opera is especially striking.Alexandre Desplat's music score is one that fits perfectly in the film and is perfection of a score on its own. It's haunting, ominous understated and truly beautiful, one also that one can listen to over and over.Kidman's performance here is astonishing and among her best. There is a huge amount of haunting intensity and heart-wrenching nuance. It's not just her in the cast who makes an impression. Bright and Heche do great jobs, Danny Huston gives a performance of intensity and vulnerability and Lauren Bacall is electrifying.Regarding highlight scenes, the highlights are the opera, beach and Heche's confrontation scene. The controversial bathtub scene may seem unintentionally creepy at first and has been criticised for being perverted, but when reading into the defence of that scene it's a scene not deserving of the controversy and nowhere near as erotic or exploitative as it appeared on screen.Story-wise, it's unusual but haunting and moving, with the questions it raises being dealt with sophistication, intrigue and sensitivity. The characters intrigue too.Overall, very good film, polarising but to me under-appreciated. 8/10 Bethany Cox

embroidery of questions. strange air of story. absence of answers. the impact in the moment of truth. Nicole Kidman in a role who reminds The Others atmosphere.Lauren Bacall presence in a role who gives new nuances to story. an old fascinating theme. controversial theme.the film has the force to impress more for atmosphere than the story itself. because the story is simple. too simple for surprise and its importance remains the wake up of temptation of a n enticing hypothesis - if the boy is real the man who says he is ?because not the reincarnation is the subject. only the attitude of society. the relation out of marriage. the forbidden sentimental relation between Anna and a too young shadow of past. it is provocative and bizarre film. far to give solutions -only different perspectives about a meeting.

Sadly even the start to the movie was a little disappointing. Sean is running in the park, and dies of a heart attack. Would have been better served with him being attacked in the park and killed. If it is his normal thing to go running in the park, then someone seemly in their 30s falling down dead with the heart attack is a crazy start.Nicole Kidman is excellent in her part especially the zoom in facial expressions while she is in the theatre. The attachment to the child who claims to be her deceased husband seem a bit crazy considering their dialog, the lack of sharing personal details, like the smell of her hair, special moments they had shared or just mannerism would have helped the story along.There were lots of opportunity to bring out the husbands characteristics, like when the boy is in the study and talking about working, if he remembers being Anna's husband then why not remember physics that he used to lecture.Also believing that Joseph and Anna's family would allow the child to stay was just too reaching.Even the ending felt like they got bored with the film and decided to finish. A film with so many possibilities, the boy could have left with Anna, the boy could have fallen and the spirit of Sean leaving the boy, Anna could have died and he left with the body of Anna. But sadly a very crap ending.