It takes a lot of inner confidence to pull off what Karyn Kusama and Nicole Kidman have done with Destroyer. Here is the noir antihero that our current cinema has been longing for. In a realm traditionally reserved for steely male icons like Clint Eastwood or even Jamie Foxx in Django Unchained, here’s a shatterproof hardcore woman hellbent on making things right once and for all.
When the film begins, Kidman’s character Erin Bell is a wrecked woman, someone so repulsive to look at you have to turn away the moment she starts walking towards you. Part of that is the distinctive look the actress has adopted for the role: makeup and wig that makes her look like she’s slept in the desert in a sleeping bag, chewed on charcoal, and not taken a shower for two weeks — or someone unable to kick a hard core heroin addiction.
None of these things are ever explained. She looks that way just because that’s the way she looks. But a more impressive part of this transformation is the internal work done by Kidman herself, clearly far and away one of the finest actors of her generation, or anyone else’s. Kidman has fully absorbed Erin inside her, clearly, as there doesn’t seem to be a point where the character ends and the actress begins.
Kusama has deliberately left much of the plot for the viewer to work out. It’s twisty and complicated, so that each layer peeled back gives us a little more information. This is true up to the film’s final scenes, where Erin’s backstory is finally revealed. We find out things little by little as we watch the wiry, dirty-faced hellion hunt down the bad guys (and one bad girl) one by one. She has nothing to lose, which makes her all the more dangerous. Her slight frame makes her someone everyone underestimates, which also gives her a clear advantage when the blood begins to flow in earnest.
Written by Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi, Destroyer is clearly a showcase for Kidman, who is in nearly every frame of the film, both as her young pretty self in flashbacks and as the hollowed out antihero she becomes.
Kidman’s character is also a mother, and like so many male archetypes in the same situation, she has not been there for her kid. This variation challenges the viewer to examine notions of the inherent roles men and women play when it comes to parenting on screen. Is it more acceptable for a dad to neglect a kid their entire lives? What if a woman does it? Is it more unforgivable? Do we expect women to be there on a level that men never can be? Probably.
The makeup and hair that makes Kidman nearly unrecognizable will be another challenge to viewers who must closely study her ravaged face for the film’s entirety. It breaks one of the rules of popular cinema: don’t mess with the one thing people love about a movie star (although she altered her perfect features in The Hours and won an Oscar for it). Here, she wears a kind of strange gray shag wig and her eyes are smudged with dark charcoal. Her teeth have been blackened. Kusama often films her in tight closeup so we’re forced to confront the change to that face — that beautiful face we know so well. But even without the makeup, this would still be one of the best performances of the year.
Hopefully Kidman will bring more awareness to Kusama’s work. With Girlfight, the underrated Jennifer’s Body, and The Invitation, Kusama is a long-simmering cinematic force who might at last attain prominence under the watchful eye of those who wish to see more women behind the camera. Kusama, like Kidman, is not afraid to taxi to the dark side of human nature and is equally unafraid of hardcore violence. Destroyer is not for the faint of heart.
Is this the best performance of Nicole Kidman’s career? It very well might be. That alone is a reason to see Destroyer. But there are other reasons. Like the film’s crackling action sequences and suspense. Like supporting women filmmakers who need audiences to show up to and affirm their bankability.
But make no doubt about it, Kidman is the real draw here, as her talents are unleashed with unexpected fury to tell an unusual story about an unusual person. A woman whose life choices have haunted to her to the point where she seems to have no life left worth preserving. A woman reduced to grit and sinew and resolved to see justice done at any cost.
Kidman said at the Q&A after the film that she’s just happy to still be working at the age of 51. A restless actor who started out her career a corkscrew-haired redhead from Australia, Kidman is now a formidable master of the craft at the top of her game.
The Sisters Brothers is getting great reviews from Venice.
We have only just started yet this best actress line-up is looking pretty amazing:
Glenn Close
Melissa McCarthy
Lady Gaga
Nicole Kidman
Olivia Colman (if she goes lead)
I still hope that Toni Collette will be a contender too.
Off-topic: in case anyone’s interested, I compiled a list of the rest of the exact times reviews for notable films that are English-language or otherwise of interest in the Oscar race in Venice films should be out:
Monday:
Sunset: 10:00 ET
At Eternity’s Gate: 13:15 ET
Dragged Across Concrete: 16:00 ET
Tuesday:
Monrovia, Indiana: 7:45 ET
Vox Lux: 13:00 ET
Werk ohne autor: 15:30 ET
Wednesday:
22 July: 13:30 ET
Thursday:
The Nightingale: 10:45 ET
Also, word on the new version of The Tree of Life should be out on Friday, either at 15:00 ET or about 18:00 ET
Thanks for being helpful to people.
“word on the new version of The Tree of Life”
Wait what? Could someone explain?
The Criterion Collection release that’s coming out later this month is a whole new version of the film, apparently. Not a Director’s cut but a brand new, very different version of the film, according to Malick himself.
The Criterion Collection release that’s coming out later this month is a whole new version of the film. Not a Director’s cut but a brand new, very different version of the film, according to Malick himself.
There are only 5 reviews of Destroyer on RT so far, including Sasha Stone’s. It’s too early, but I predict from these that the film will not be a BP contender, but Nicole Kidman will be a contender for Best Actress. That’s fine by me. I agree with Sasha that she is a great actress,
“Boy Erased” is opening with very solid reviews. Not raves, like “Roma” or “The Favourite”. But the reviews are very solid.
Solid indeed and yet the Twitter folks are acting like we had just been dealt a Gigli.
Isn’t Twitter the place where Donald Trump and his fanbase hang out?
Twitter seems lately to be:
30% MAGAt infestation
40% Resistance Pest Control Service
20% Normal People (incl Film Twitter)
10% Cat and Dog and miscellaneous adorable wildlife pics
(So, point taken, James. At least 30% of Twitter background buzz is just a lot of hateful growling and bitter hissing noise.)
Accurate. Af. Sadly. I almost corrected you asking where are the misogynistic little boys throwing hissy fits and attacking every woman who dares to be more accomplished than them, but then I realised your first two groups covers that.
Thanks for sharing … I really hope this movie is great.
To Die For. Eyes Wide Shut. Moulin Rouge. The Others. Birthday Girl. Dogville. Birth. Fur. Margot at the Wedding. Rabbit Hole. The Paperboy. Stoker. The Killing of a Sacred Deer. Destroyer.
Bottom line : Nicole Kidman is fearless af. There isn’t another A-list leading lady out there who would go near the kind of risky, daring, bold, layered, flawed characters that she keeps revisiting on the regular. Sure, she does her fair share of relatively safe and conventional roles (Cold Mountain, The Hours, Australia, Lion, The Beguiled, Boy Erased), too, but that doesn’t take away from her brilliant accomplishment of delivering the kind of range that is essentially unheard of when it comes to Hollywood actors, male or female. Add the fact that she is a force to reckon with on the small screen (Big Little Lies, Top of the Lake) and on stage, as well (brilliant turn in Photograph 54 a few years back in London), and you might just come to the conclusion I always do : she is one of the all-time greats.
*Photograph 51
‘ There isn’t another A list leading lady out there ‘ oh really ? Have you ever heard about the most bold risky versatile A list actress of this generation : Charlize Theron? There is no other actress who has done Charlize Theron bold risky work in Monster, Young Adult, North Country , Furiosa Mad Max and recently Tully
Theron is great but to me Kidman’s choices stand out slightly more.
Agree completely. No contest and I love Charlize and think Monster is one of the all-time great performances. But she’s still no Nicole.
Alicia Briali I agree 100% with you , I like Nicole but she is no Charlize , Charlize has created iconic performances in Cinema , from Monster to Mad Max to Atomic Blonde to North Country to Young Adult to the iconic evil queen to Tully to science fiction in Prometheus…. her versatility and bold performances are incredible , her body of work is amazing and she is younger than Nicole, she is producing the film of Roger Ailes and Nicole is playing too can’t wait to see them both sharing the screen !
And what about Sebastian Stan, not even a word? He was amazing in I, Tonya. Happy to see his next ambitious project.
Melissa McCarthy is getting great reviews too.
I wish reviewers would speak for themselves and not for everyone. I don’t think “our current cinema has been longing for” a female noir antihero. Perhaps this reviewer was longing for that personally, which is fair enough. Everyone is entitled to their own tastes.
Bad-ass women are hardly a new thing, though. Some people seem to have conveniently short memories when it suits them. This review mentioned Jamie Foxx from Tarantino’s Django Unchained. I can think of two female noir antiheroes “hellbent on making things right once and for all” just from Tarantino alone: Jackie Brown and Kill Bill Vols I and II. There are countless others.
In computer video games, there are probably more female action heroes than males now, from what I hear. (I am not an expert in the field.) Boys are turned on by seeing bad-ass chicks on their screens: it is common knowledge to the game-makers now.
Sasha is speaking for herself, and also as expert in the industry
Well, if she is speaking for herself, that’s good. I must somehow have missed it. I think this review would have been greatly improved if the first paragraph had contained the words “I” or “me” instead of only the impersonal “our current cinema”.
The kind of badass you’re talking about is crafted for the male gaze, sexualised caricatures. This reviewer is very right in saying what she does as she’s speaking about the badass woman devoid of the pretty, crafted for narrative pleasure and not necessarily viewing pleasure.
She still looks like a beautiful woman to me, not that that is a criticism. Beauty is subjective. Even if you don’t think she is beautiful, we agree that she is a bad-ass woman here. She seems to be in the vein of Ripley in Alien and Sarah Connor in Terminator 2, as mentioned below. Both of those have legions of ardent male fans too.
There are very few ‘badass female’ characters done in realistic, real world settings and films. Kill Bill is a fantasy. Ripley in Alien is a fantasy. Sarah Connor in Terminator 2 is a fantasy. Charlize Theron in Max Max: Fury Road and Atomic Blonde is a fantasy. See where I’m going with this….
To me it seems rare that a woman is playing a tough badass character front and centre in a gritty, realistic noir or cop drama. It’s usually done in some fantasy/sci-fi context, as if to say that women can only be believable as badasses if it’s not too much like the real world. We can go along with Buffy and Ripley because vampires and acid spitting Aliens are not ‘real’. But a female Dirty Harry….nah, that’s too much!
So Destroyer could indeed be a bit ground-breaking.
Yes, thanks for giving all those examples.You made my point much better than I could. I did see where you were going. However, I think most male action heroes also live in fantasy worlds.As you have guessed, I am not a fan of this genre in general, regardless of the gender of the protagonist.
Destroyer is not ground-breaking. Here are 8 other films featuring women cops: Fargo (1996), The Heat (2013), Robocop (1987) (she was a human cop while her male partner was a fantasy cyborg), S.W.A.T. (2003), Blue Steel (1989), The Bone Collector (2000), Lethal Weapon 3 (1995), Gone Girl (2014) (the policewoman, not Rosamund Pike).
Doesn’t a female version of Death Wish come out in a week. Peppermint I think it’s called.
Out of all your examples, Fargo and Gone Girl are the only ones where the narrative centre was a woman and secondly, Fargo is the only one which qualifies as stripped of male gaze.
Untrue. Firstly, most of the films I listed did indeed have a woman as the narrative centre. Secondly, as I said to you above, the male gaze is subjective. All of them or none of them qualify as stripped of the male gaze. What they have in common is that they are all bad-ass policewomen in movies, which was erroneously described above as ground-breaking.
Lol see this just proves the point: you can think of a half-dozen examples going back 20 years. I can think of a half-dozen examples going back 6 months.
No, I just listed the Top 8 from an article celebrating the best female cops in movies. However, if I include female cops in movies regardless of the quality of the movies, I can find 50. *F I F T Y.* This list ends at 50, but no doubt it could be extended much further. I can’t be bothered to type them out, so go and see for yourself:
http://www.listal.com/list/police-woman-movies
Charlize Theron work in Monster , North Country, Young Adult, Tully … is No fantasy.