Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down

Nicole Kidman plays a Russian mail order bride to Ben Chaplin's provincial bank clerk in Birthday Girl, which premiered at last year's London Film Festival. Carrying a none too savoury past, Kidman brings a whole heap of trouble into Chaplin's life but also serves to spice up his love life. Engaging in what can only be described as a little 'light bondage', the pair put all reservations aside, but the best stuff never made it to the screen. According the Birthday Girl director Jez Butterworth, what appears in the film is a very toned down version of what was actually shot. "We kind of pushed it a little too far," he confessed in the latest issue of Heat magazine. While not about to go into the gory details, Butterworth did reveal that much of the lost material should make it into the DVD. So if S&M is something that floats your boat, keep an eye out for the Birthday Girl disc later in the year.