Selections from Nicole Kidman's filmography that demonstrate her extraordinary talent and risk-taking commitment.
Watching Karyn Kusama's devastating 2018 Los Angeles crime drama Destroyer, I kept coming back to an overused but in this case entirely appropriate expression: You've never seen Nicole Kidman quite like this before. Just when you think she's shown all sides and facets of her onscreen self, she digs even deeper, revealing further dimensions to her brilliance as an actor.
The film is brutal, unforgiving, and heartbreaking. Kidman plays LAPD detective Erin Bell, who is forced to revisit the undercover assignment that went horribly awry years before while trying to track down the gang leader responsible. Kidman is at the center of it all, appearing in nearly every scene. Not only that, but she's playing Bell as a much younger, healthier women in flashbacks and showing us how that traumatic undercover case impacted every aspect of her present-day life. It's a riveting performance that requires Kidman to do things few superstars of her caliber would dare. She's a workaholic/alcoholic mother failing miserably to reconnect with her only daughter. At one point she dispassionately jerks off an ex-con in exchange for valuable information. It's heavy stuff.
The way Kidman carries herself as young Erin--lithe and athletic--is contrasted beautifully with older Erin's broken-down body, evidenced in her pained, shuffling gait. It's an extraordinary transformation, one aided by exceptional makeup effects but mostly due to Kidman's astonishing physicality in the role, expressing Erin's grief, shame, and regret. You'll find yourself struggling to see the Kidman you know underneath the weathered and beaten down shell that Erin has become. Yet in both instances, past and present, Kidman reveals how wounded and emotionally troubled Erin was all along. When Kusama notes in the director's commentary on the Blu-ray release that Erin "resides in a purgatory netherworld between past and present," we believe it thanks to Kidman.
The film is brutal, unforgiving, and heartbreaking. Kidman plays LAPD detective Erin Bell, who is forced to revisit the undercover assignment that went horribly awry years before while trying to track down the gang leader responsible. Kidman is at the center of it all, appearing in nearly every scene. Not only that, but she's playing Bell as a much younger, healthier women in flashbacks and showing us how that traumatic undercover case impacted every aspect of her present-day life. It's a riveting performance that requires Kidman to do things few superstars of her caliber would dare. She's a workaholic/alcoholic mother failing miserably to reconnect with her only daughter. At one point she dispassionately jerks off an ex-con in exchange for valuable information. It's heavy stuff.
The way Kidman carries herself as young Erin--lithe and athletic--is contrasted beautifully with older Erin's broken-down body, evidenced in her pained, shuffling gait. It's an extraordinary transformation, one aided by exceptional makeup effects but mostly due to Kidman's astonishing physicality in the role, expressing Erin's grief, shame, and regret. You'll find yourself struggling to see the Kidman you know underneath the weathered and beaten down shell that Erin has become. Yet in both instances, past and present, Kidman reveals how wounded and emotionally troubled Erin was all along. When Kusama notes in the director's commentary on the Blu-ray release that Erin "resides in a purgatory netherworld between past and present," we believe it thanks to Kidman.
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