"Birth" is, of course, about death, about the immeasurable grief and hopelessly hopeful denial that follows amid death's survivors. As such, "Birth" is exquisitely creepy.

Nicole Kidman stars as Anna, a widow for a decade, now a fiancee anew to Joseph (Danny Huston), a slick businessman who betrays vague menace despite benign posturing. Enter Sean (Cameron Bright), a sullen, soulful 10-year-old hefting an orange manga backpack, claiming to be Anna's long-dead husband, issuing a stern warning: "Don't marry Joseph."

Though her family and friends are understandably skeptical of this unwelcome intruder upon their Central Park-adjacent comfort, Anna falls inexorably under young Sean's spell: She gazes wistfully as he traverses the monkey bars; as his fingers caress her face, we see their nails, bitten to the nubs. Naturally, complications ensue.

Director Jonathan Glazer has made "Birth" as languorously melancholy as his previous film, "Sexy Beast," was muscularly hyperkinetic. Long, almost decadently stately tracking shots and elements of the set design will put viewers in mind of "The Shining." Kidman, sporting a pixie haircut, pointed eyebrows and angular eye makeup, seems a cross between Mia Farrow in "Rosemary's Baby" and Jolene Blalock's Vulcan character in "Star Trek's" latest TV incarnation.

These and other details give "Birth" the texture of a psychological thriller, but it's not, really. Textually, the story is a little predictable and some will look askance at Anna's lack of resistance to Sean's claim.

But "Birth" resonates as a post-9/11 metaphor: Anna is desperately replacing a husband, who, it's established, spoke forcefully of atomic dangers, for the innocence embodied in a youngster in need of a bath, or two. "That's all I want - peace," Anna wrenchingly confides near film's end, even though it turns out that that innocence - Sean's, and ours - never really existed.

There's no nervier superstar out there today than Kidman, who neatly divides her efforts between arcane provocations ("Dogville," "The Hours") and mainstream nonsense ("Stepford Wives," the upcoming "Bewitched"). Here, as the only New Yorker willing to expose her bare legs to a frigid New York winter, Kidman gives a delectably elliptical portrayal of someone so subsumed with loss that she's ceased processing the difference between life, morality and love.

Bright is the film's real find, however, an old soul still adorned in baby fat. His gravity makes the story not as queasy as it might otherwise seem and, in hushed scenes in which Anna discerns his heart's whispers, he almost makes this unlikely romance palpable.