REVIEW
Destroyer
Stars: 3.0
Starring , Nicole Kidman, Sebastian Stan, Toby Kebbell, Tatiana Maslany, Bradley Whitford, Jade Pettyjohn and Scoot McNairy
Directed by Karyn Kusama
Written by Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi
Rated: 14A for coarse language, violence, drug use and sexual situations
Runtime: 121 minutes
Now playing at Cineplex Odeon South Edmonton Common
It comes with a certain amount of shock that Nicole Kidman didn’t even gain an Academy Award nomination for her performance in director Karyn Kusama’s new police drama, Destroyer.
When I saw the preview for it a few months ago, I thought she was a shoo-in. Maybe the drawn, gravel-voiced character of Erin didn’t have the same pristine porcelain beauty as Olivia Colman in The Favourite.
Maybe the members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences think more fondly of Kidman when she’s in period pieces like The Hours. Whatever the case may be, she is a highly versatile actress and goes deep undercover to prove that here.
Here, she plays LAPD detective Erin Bell, a cop who once worked deep undercover by posing as a member of a gang. She wasn’t embedded alone. There was also Chris (Sebastian Stan) who pretended to be her boyfriend.
No movie about California gang life is full of happiness and smiles. Destroyer’s narrative shifts back and forth in time and we see the cop as a harrowing shell of her formerly youthful self. Something really bad happened when she was in the gang, and her present self needs to retrace her steps in order to fix it. Along the way, she encounters all kinds of nefarious, gritty sorts, none of whom are characterized as fully and as heartbreakingly as she is.
Kidman’s transformation between the former and present selves of her character is a startling one, and a major credit to her prodigious talent and her fearlessness in accepting challenging roles. The movie itself doesn’t really hold up its weight compared to what she does, but it’s still worth the time invested to see her work her magic.