But you already knew that, right?
I didn’t for a long time, to be honest. I don’t know what it was, I just didn’t take her seriously as an actress. Yes, I was being a jerk about it, but she just wasn’t someone whose talent registered with me right away.
Then a few years ago, I was watching the stranded-on-a-boat thriller Dead Calm (1989) and I realized that she was awfully good in that movie. It’s one of my favorite thrillers—although it’s not available on DVD.com currently—and for the bulk of the movie it’s just her and Billy Zane in a dangerous game of cat and mouse on a boat in the middle of the Pacific. I decided to give her another shot and started watching Nicole Kidman movies.
Turns out, she is actually a great actress. I know, it seems unfair that someone so perfectly beautiful is also that talented. It’s like Halle Berry. How come she gets to be such a good actress? She’s already way ahead anyway. Sheesh. I guess it’s a sort of reverse discrimination against beautiful people. I mean, Channing Tatum shouldn’t be a good actor, but he is. Nor should Cary Grant. There’s another one. Kidman has put up an impressive body of work over the past thirty years and here are some of her more notable performances.
This film was the first one to draw considerable critical acclaim for Kidman. She had been in some big movies prior to this one and was already a global superstar when this movie came out, but the “big” movies she was in were both Tom Cruise movies—Days of Thunder (1990) and Far and Away (1992). Neither of these movies really showcased her talents other than as the pretty girl Tom Cruise was involved with. Zzzzzz…. To Die For, however, is another kettle of fish altogether. It is based on a true crime story from 1980s New Hampshire: Pam Smart, a high school teacher, convinces a 15-year-old student and sexual partner of hers to murder her husband so she could collect the insurance and pursue her dreams of becoming… a TV weatherperson? Yup. Kidman is spot-on-perfect as this vacuously evil character in this Gus Van Sant masterwork. The film also features 21 year-old Joaquin Phoenix. This is a disturbing and brilliant film and one you really should see.
Henry James is sort of the American answer to E. M. Forster: a rich source of novels about people from a certain class wandering around in nice clothes and having all sorts of interesting psychological problems. You know what? That’s probably unfair. James (1843-1916) may not be considered one of the great American novelists, but he’s an awfully good one. He captures an era when America was emerging as a world power and the traditional social elites of Europe (especially England) were starting to get more than a bit uncomfortable with that. My favorite book of his is Daisy Miller, which is almost Jane Austen-like in its courtship story. And don’t miss The Turn of the Screw (1898), which is one of the best ghost stories ever told. There was a made-for-TV version of this made in 1999 with Colin Firth, another made-for-TV version made in 1974, and a version called The Turning that came out earlier in 2020. None of these have garnered much critical acclaim, however, and I find it hard to believe a really great movie hasn’t been made of that book. Back to The Portrait of a Lady—this is Jane Campion’s film adaptation of the James novel about an American visiting 19th-century London. It came out right after her Academy-Award winning film The Piano (1993). This film is a far more conventional film than The Piano, and is a fairly straightforward book adaptation. It has never received much critical acclaim, but I like it a lot, and especially admire Kidman’s and John Malkovich’s performances here. Worth a rental.
This is a weird and sexy movie. Actually, let me take that back. This is a VERY weird and VERY sexy movie. Stanley Kubrick is one of the greatest film directors of all time. This was his final movie. I can say for certain it isn’t his best, but it is certainly one worth watching, although at times it’s kinda hard to figure out exactly what is going on here. Kidman pairs again with Tom Cruise (they were married at the time) in this disturbing, erotic thriller/psychodrama. She plays a wife troubled by sexual fantasy dreams and Cruise the husband who constantly faces sexual temptation wherever he seems to go. Kidman is excellent in this film. Here’s a fun challenge: rent this movie and watch it and then write to me and see if you can explain to me what this movie is about. I’ve watched it a couple times now and still haven’t figured it out.
Baz Luhrmann’s extravagant and outrageous musical with Ewan McGregor as a young poet and Kidman as a cabaret star. Let me just say up front that this is a ridiculous movie. Luhrmann always goes for the surprising. This is what they call a “jukebox musical.” In other words, the songs are all self-standing hits, not composed for the film. Luhrmann squeezes them into the film to make it seem like a musical. Visually, the movie is spectacular. Set in the Moulin Rouge cabaret in late 19th-century Paris, Kidman plays Satine, a cabaret performer and “courtesan” (wink wink, nudge nudge) who falls in love with a young English poet and writer named Christian. (Get it: Satan v Christian? Subtle, huh?) Anyway, it’s a completely over-the-top movie and Kidman jumps right in feet-first and just goes for it. Look, this is one of those movies where you’re either in for the ride or you’re not. I was in for the ride. It’s a lot of melodramatic fun with songs you already know.
Kidman joins Meryl Streep and Julianne Moore in this psychological drama about three women whose lives are connected by my favorite Virginia Woolf novel, Mrs. Dalloway. Mrs. Dalloway is widely-regarded as one of the best novels ever written in English. It is often compared to James Joyce’s Ulysses, but it has one major advantage over that novel: Mrs. Dalloway is a book you can read without having to drop acid to see if you can make sense of it. The film tells the story of three women on a single day. Meryl Streep plays a woman preparing a party for her long time AIDS-stricken friend, Julianne Moore is a pregnant 1950s housewife in California in an unhappy marriage, and finally Kidman is Virginia Woolf herself. This is a deeply thoughtful film and the performances are outstanding here. Kidman won an Oscar for her work, and rightly so. This is a movie you should not miss. Great script by David Hare, based on Michael Cunningham’s novel of the same name.
To paraphrase feminist theorist Susan Brownmiller, sexual harrassment isn’t about sex; it’s about power. John Lithgow plays the Jabba the Hutt-like character of Roger Ailes, the real life founder of Fox News. Ailes ran the network as his own personal playground and sexually toxic environment. The sexual harassment went on for years until one morning co-anchor Gretchen Carlson had finally had enough and filed a lawsuit against Ailes and Fox. Kidman plays Gretchen Carlson as the straight-arrow Minnesota woman she is in real life, even getting the trace Minnesota accent right. Charlize Theron is Megan Kelly, and Margot Robbie plays a character who represents a number of other women who worked in the Fox News wasp nest. Carlson’s actions and the story of what happened to her and the rest of these women at the company proved to be a cautionary tale that led indirectly to the #MeToo movement and its on-going transformation of our society. The movie cleverly and seamlessly blends actual footage within the film. The movie’s initial box office was a bit of a disappointment, but the story and the acting is spectacular and this is one of those movies that seems destined to be watched over and over in the coming years. It merits the attention.
David Raether is a veteran TV writer and essayist. He worked for 12 years as a television sitcom writer/producer, including a 111-episode run on the ground-breaking ABC comedy “Roseanne.” His essays have been published by Salon.com, The Times of London, and Longforms.org, and have been lauded by The Atlantic Magazine and the BBC World Service. His memoir, Homeless: A Picaresque Memoir from Our Times, is awaiting publication.