Actress Spotlight: Nicole Kidman

She's getting Oscar buzz once again, this time for a transformational performance as Lucille Ball

Dec 20, 2021

Coming to you on a Monday this week! We will not have a newsletter on Friday, but you can expect our top 10 films of 2021 next week. Happy holidays and see you then!

Nicole Kidman isn’t necessarily the first actress you’d expect to play Lucille Ball in a film on the life of the I Love Lucy star, but Kidman is once again generating awards buzz for a transformational performance. Being the Ricardos, written and directed by Aaron Sorkin, is out in theaters now (and streaming on Amazon December 21), so we had to give one of our most daring and accomplished actresses a DYLA spotlight.

Kidman has taken on risky roles throughout her career and it usually works out. The Australian Oscar winner has proven she has range and talent that very few can match, starring in a Kubrick psychodrama with her real-life husband Tom Cruise (Eyes Wide Shut), a Baz Luhrmann hit musical (Moulin Rouge!), and smaller fare like Rabbit Hole and Lion. Recently, her TV work in Big Little Lies and The Undoing has drawn her even more praise. Nicole Kidman is just never not interesting (even in a corny AMC Theaters ad). If you haven’t seen her in the movies we’re recommending today, make sure you remedy that.

Billy recommends…

Moulin Rouge! (streaming on Amazon Prime)

This is a re-post from a July 2020 newsletter

This movie is a tale as old as time… wait… that’s another musical that I love. Time to focus, Billy. A classic love story needs some flair to it to keep things interesting. That can be done with the chemistry of the two leads, unique production design, amazing music, good style, or a screenplay that tells a common story differently. Moulin Rouge! has all of those things mixed up into one endlessly satisfying movie. Director Baz Luhrmann puts his obvious style on this one from the very first scene and there is no turning back because this love story musical is one of the best things to be put on screen in the 21st century.

Moulin Rouge! stars Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman. Ewan plays Christian, a naive wannabe playwright who believes that love can cure anything, but he himself has never been in love. Kidman plays Satine, a confident wannabe star who will do anything to make that happen, but love complicates her vision. Satine’s manager (pimp?) has a semi-successful production with a ton of potential that needs funding to become a world phenomenon. The Duke comes to see this extravagant show and if he puts his expensive stamp of approval on this then all of their desires will begin to become reality. Christian sneaks into the show with his crew who attend the same show, but they are trying to convince Satine to be the star of their production. In a moment of confusion Satine thinks that Christian is The Duke and this is where our love story picks up the pace (not that it needed to).

Christian and Satine have some of the most convincing love Hollywood has ever seen. Sometimes that is enough. Musicals allow the simplest stories to play out in attractive ways that I cannot get enough of. That is the main reason musicals are one of my favorite genres. They are typically stories that need the simplest of setups and a premise that keeps the shallow plot going. A shallow plot in this case is not something that is a negative. The reason being that each moment is presented in a bold and loud manner, making the simple or shallow premise seem like the most important message to ever be shown. That love can defeat all and all can/should be sacrificed once it is found. Sure that is a little ridiculous, but when Moulin Rouge! is on, that message is real and poignant.

Drew recommends…

To Die For (streaming on Criterion Channel)

Suzanne Stone (Nicole Kidman) thinks that you’re pretty much a nobody unless you’re on TV. Because, what’s the point of doing anything worthwhile if nobody’s watching? This is the extremely suspect outlook on life that propels To Die For, a 1995 dark comedy gem that features a spellbinding Kidman performance in a career full of them.

Inspired by the salacious true story of 22-year-old Pamela Smart, who coerced her high-school lover and his friends to kill her new husband in Derry, New Hampshire, To Die For alters many of the details of the Smart case while using this unbelievable story of murder, sex, and fame in small town America as its north star. With a single-minded relentlessness, Suzanne has her sights set on becoming a world-famous newscaster. She seizes a gig doing the weather at a local cable station, but her husband (Matt Dillon) doesn’t take her dream all that seriously and his idea of their future starts to clash with hers. Meanwhile, she seduces Jimmy (Joaquin Phoenix), the high-school subject of a TV documentary she’s working on, who becomes so infatuated he’ll do anything for her.

As if this story wasn’t entertaining enough, writer Buck Henry (The Graduate) and director Gus Van Sant (Good Will Hunting, Milk) tell it with a brisk pace and a direct-to-camera style. The result is a sharp and riveting film that also has something to say about American life, specifically the corrupting power of our obsession with TV, fame, and sordid crimes. Not only is To Die For incredibly watchable and funny, but it also leaves you considering how television, in its many forms, has warped the ethics and mindset of the strivers who see it as a path to fame and celebrity for its own sake.

Suzanne is as narcissistic and dishonorable as they come, and she’d do anything to get to the top. Kidman seems to understand this about the character, playing Suzanne as a young, attractive sociopath that will always manipulate the situation to get what she wants. However, Kidman also generates a little dash of pathos and humanity for Suzanne in her performance, which is tricky to pull off with such an unsavory character. The entire movie is well-cast – young Joaquin Phoenix and Casey Affleck as empty-headed teenagers are especially good – but Suzanne is the kind of role tailor-made for Nicole Kidman to memorably make her own. To Die For may not be her most famous performance, but it belongs near the top of the best things she’s ever done.

The Tender Bar (in theaters on December 22 and Amazon Prime on January 7)

Billy: Ben Affleck is having himself a hell of a year as a supporting actor. Sadly though, this movie is just The Sandlot with no baseball. - 2.5 / 5 Apples

Drew: Without a magnetic Ben Affleck performance as a cool 70s uncle, this would be utterly mediocre. With it, The Tender Bar takes on a certain charm that makes this a breezy coming-of-age story with admittedly very little dramatic stakes. It’s another perfectly fine directorial effort from George Clooney. - 3 / 5 Apples

Do You Like Apples

Discussion about this post