STELLAR PERFORMANCE
Kidman shines in Destroyer
I saw this film at the Toronto festival in September, and every time I’ve seen its star, Nicole Kidman, since then, I think: “Thank God she’s OK.”
At the Golden Globes, in interviews and on red carpets, the 51-year-old remains poised and glamorous. But as the LAPD’s Erin Bell in Destroyer, she’s a mess. The opening shot shows her bloodshot eyes, and hair that might be dusty or greying or coked or some combination of the three. And while Kidman is svelte, Erin could only be called junkie-skinny. Any more burnt out and she wouldn’t be working homicide — it’d be working her.
Destroyer is the latest from Karyn Kusama, who specializes in strong, often conflicted female characters. Between stints in television, she has directed Jennifer’s Body, about a possessed cheerleader; the science-fiction drama Aeon Flux, starring Charlize Theron; and 2000’s Girlfight, a first film both for Kusama and lead actress Michelle Rodriguez.
In Destroyer’s opening scene, Erin happens upon a John Doe murder victim clutching a dye-spattered banknote. She clearly knows more about this guy than she’s letting on to her bewildered partner, co-workers and superiors. Visiting a friendly face in the FBI, she tells him simply: “Silas is back.”
What follows is an Odyssean journey, as Erin aims to track down the mysterious Silas by visiting
the various criminal wrecks he’s left in his wake, including the dying-of-cancer Toby (James Jordan) and the smooth-talking DiFranco (Bradley Whitford). Each encounter exacts a price, and we start to wonder whether there will be anything left of her, physically or metaphysically, by the end of the film.
The story’s timeline is cleverly fractured, but some scenes show a decidedly less haggard Erin from what is clearly a few years back, when she and fellow cop Chris (Sebastian Stan) were undercover, trying to take down Silas (Toby Kebbell) and his gang, and possibly falling in love on the job.
Among those she encounters is Regina’s Tatiana Maslany. We also see Erin dealing in the present with daughter Shelby (Jade Pettyjohn), who seems determined to make even poorer life choices than her mom.
Between the past and its consequences, a crackling screenplay from Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi never ceases to remind us that life is all about free will and the choices we make. All of Erin’s stem from the answer to one simple question, posed halfway through the film: “What if we don’t?”
Along the way we see some people who choose to play at being bank robbers, while others put on a white hat to play cops and robbers. One character chooses to play Russian roulette, giving over free will to the chance of an empty chamber. Even a brief snatch of a ball game on a radio speaks to the theme: “He just missed it. He’d like that one back.” We’ve all had days like that.
Erin’s had a lot of them.
All of this plays out over a brooding score of Theodore Shapiro that suggests whales playing string instruments, possibly while being whipped. And speaking of anguish, I couldn’t decide whether the slow drip of clues into Erin’s story felt more like an IV or an ancient water torture.
Kidman proves a worthwhile companion through this underworld, even though you would probably cross the street (and maybe even move to a different city) to avoid bumping into Erin more than once.
That’s the skill and the strength of her performance. Whether you choose to follow her dangerous journey — well, as the film makes eminently clear, that’s your choice. But there are rewards to those who take the leap. cknight@postmedia.com twitter.com/chrisknightfilm
WEST HOLLYWOOD, CALIF. Director Karyn Kusama is doing what she does best: Adding shadow to Los Angeles. As she sits down at the corner booth of a charming but customer-free restaurant, Kusama takes stock of the empty chairs. “Hopefully that doesn’t mean we’re going to get food poisoning,” she shrugs. “Not to put a damper on things.”
Kusama has learned to view L.A. with skepticism. Her 2000 debut, Girlfight, made her the only filmmaker ever to sweep Sundance’s grand jury and best director prizes. Overnight, she became a major Hollywood contender, but then she fought, and lost, two bruising rounds against the studio system when her big-budget follow-ups flopped for reasons outside her control.
Aeon Flux was chopped into nonsense after the departure of the Paramount head who shared Kusama’s vision for a cerebral, romantic, sci-fi blockbuster. Then 2009’s Jennifer’s Body was mismarketed as a naughty Megan Fox romp for teen boys by executives who didn’t trust the ticket-buying power of teen girls.
Today, Kusama is right down the slope from the Mulholland Drive home where she shot her 2015 comeback. The Invitation was a small-budget dinner-party thriller that turned the prideful thrill of gazing across the Southern California sprawl into a fatal trap. Critics loved it — they’d kept believing in Kusama.
Her new film, Destroyer, stars Nicole Kidman in an award-worthy performance as a boozing, embittered cop. It’s the second film of an intended Los Angeles trilogy that Kusama has been piecing together with her screenwriter husband, Phil Hay, and his longtime writing partner, Matt Manfredi. (“I’m the mistress,” Kusama jokes.)
“L.A. is such a Pandora’s box. Once you open it up, more and more weird stories and dark threads seem to come undone,” she says.
Kidman lobbied for the part of disgraced officer Erin Bell, who first limps into view at a murder scene looking like she could be the corpse.
“It’s this incredibly discordant mash-up of vibrant natural life with heaps of trash and the discards of human civilization,” says Kusama.
Destroyer’s script jumps back and forth between Bell the undercover rookie and, decades later, Bell the broken obsessive. The only measure of time is the punishment on Kidman’s face.
Kusama would rather not specify what the makeup team did to make the actress unrecognizable — when Kidman won her best actress Oscar for 2003’s The Hours, people wanted to talk only about her prosthetic nose. Life has clobbered Bell so hard that it hurts to see her young and hopeful. It adds to the sting in a procedural that’s really about taking stock of your bad choices — and Bell makes a lot of them.
“I think it’s so important to stand in your decisions and not give yourself too much time to be in regret mode,” Kusama says. Unlike Bell, she embraces self-reflection.
Growing up, she struggled to blend in. “We were the Japanese family — not just on the block, but, like, within miles,” Kusama says. Movies showed her that there was a colourful world beyond her neighbourhood. So she muscled herself into New York University’s film school. “I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. I just knew I loved it; I knew it saved me.”
“She just keeps putting one foot in front of the other,” Kidman says of Kusama, even on the day a nearby active shooter interrupted a scene in South Central L.A. and Kidman ran inside and hit the floor. Other people panicked, less about the risk of injury than the lost hours on an already timestrapped set. Kusama stayed calm.
Old-school types might call that macho. Counters Kidman, “She’s a girl’s girl,” a filmmaker who is quietly, stubbornly committed to making female-driven stories. Still, Kusama’s individual struggle has become a barometer for all female filmmakers, with industry people turning to her as both an oracle and a victim — neither of which is a role she enjoys.
“If I am being used as any kind of bellwether, I hope what people could do is acknowledge the power of stamina, the value of just putting my head down and getting through some really dark times,” Kusama says, like the six-year film hiatus she spent raising her son, Michio. She knew she’d make another movie — somehow — and that when she did, she’d pick scrappy independence over a studio chequebook and zero control.
Recently, she parked at a farmers’ market to splurge on an expensive pork roast and accidentally woke up someone sleeping in their car. That glimpse into another life jabbed her with guilt.
“I’m trying to figure out how to keep delving into the pitch-black areas that interest me without just being suicidal,” she says with a smile that assures that she’s OK. Her films press people to pay attention, to wonder about the people asleep in their vehicles — an image that’s also in one of Destroyer’s most affecting scenes. “When the lights come up, I want you to look at the person next to you and feel a sense of curiosity, a sense of the mystery that we all hold.”