Birthday gift idea for 10 year old girl

Return of Nicole Kidman was best `Birthday' gift

Boy, do those Butterworth brothers - director Jez, producer Steve and co-screenwriter Tom - have a story to tell about their new film, "Birthday Girl."

The movie, which stars Nicole Kidman, may be opening this week, but it actually began filming in the United Kingdom and Australia in summer 1999. Jez was determined to cast Kidman as the titular character, a Russian mail-order bride who arrives in England to live with a shy but kinky bank clerk played by Ben Chaplin.

"We went to see `The Blue Room,' " said Jez, referring to Kidman's stage hit. "We were not planning to cast an English (speaking) actress in the first place, but she seemed to understand the role so completely, I came out so certain she could do it and so it sort of decided itself."

However, brother Tom was the Butterworth who had the idea for the movie. "It was six years ago when Russia was opening up and these Russian women were advertising for English husbands," he said. "I thought at the time that was an interesting idea."

Then he gave "Birthday Girl" an autobiographical twist for its setting. "We all grew up in St. Albans," he said. "There are not many films set in that home counties environment and it seems an area no one would go to. But we had a real connection with it and brought it to the screen. England's a bit ashamed of its middle counties, but we liked it."

Jez cast Kidman, although he knew her schedule was packed. "She wasn't going to do this because it was so tight, but I twisted her arm, twisted her knee," he said, alluding to Kidman actually injuring herself while filming one of her tussles with Chaplin.

Butterworth knew a reshoot was necessary for the scene, but Kidman worked the last day until 4 a.m. before boarding a plane two hours later to do publicity for Stanley Kubrick's 1999 film "Eyes Wide Shut." The Butterworths had to wait - a year.

"She hurt her shoulder shooting with us and couldn't do the fight sequence," said Stephen Butterworth. "Then on `Moulin Rouge,' Nicole hurt her elbow and then her knee. We didn't finish `Birthday Girl' until August 2000."

Jez maintains a sense of humor about the situation. "She's a very good actress but physically an absolute wreck."

On a more serious note, he added, "Working with Nicole is like a merry-go-round: You miss the brass ring once, it takes 10 months before it comes around again."

The irony is that "Birthday Girl" had been significantly delayed before it involved Kidman. The brothers also had to wait for Chaplin's schedule to lighten.

Yet even when the film was finished, the Butterworths found themselves again drumming their fingers. This time, they ran into a snag when their original release date from Miramax coincided with Kidman's other Miramax film, the heavily promoted "Moulin Rouge." The studio decided to postpone "Birthday Girl" until the summer to take advantage of any heat Kidman might generate in the offbeat musical.

But then Miramax saw "The Others" in a rough cut and rushed that to late summer release - a smart move as it turned out, for the film became Kidman's first "solo" vehicle to earn $100 million at the box office.

But that meant postponing "Birthday Girl" again. The fall was a bad choice since the plan was to release yet another Kidman movie, "The Hours," in which she plays Virginia Woolf. That film has been shelved until Christmas.

Now that "Birthday Girl" is finally set to hit theaters, the Butterworths plan to keep working together. "It goes back to Tom teaching me how to read when I was 3 years old," said Jez. "We did plays and TV stuff at university and six years ago when I was doing `Mojo Girl,' Steve was disgusted with his job and got into films that way. It just seems an easy way to do it: You have to work with people you trust."

It's a sound philosophy, because as the Butterworths discovered, you never know when you may be working together on one movie for years.

Caption: BETTER LATE THAN NEVER: Nicole Kidman, left, with Mathieu Kassovitz, stars as a Russian mail-order bride in Jez Butterworth's much-delayed `Birthday Girl.'