Nicole Kidman Tribute: Rabbit Hole (2010)

by Cláudio Alves

For a while, I thought that loss would lead to tears, a general sadness that consumes you whole and leaves behind a husk. Much art and media made it seem so to my adolescent self. The piteous melodrama that the mainstream loves to sell was a convincing lie, and so were the beatific visions of bereavement from which a person learns and grows stronger. But life doesn't obey narrative rules, nor does it seek to satisfy in the ways a Hollywood producer might. The tears do come - and they did - but there was more to it. More that wasn't aligned with ideas of beautiful suffering or an education of the soul. When I found grief, I found anger, too.

Why must it hurt so much? Why must it isolate so strongly? Why does it seem like no one understands? Why must joy prevail in the world? It's obscene, it feels wrong, and it stokes the fires of fury inside. Yet, there's no clear target for the flame. You find yourself full of emotion, wanting to wield it like a weapon and hurt something, anything, maybe yourself, or maybe nothing at all. There is no reason in grief and nowhere to go from there. Often, one finds no path out or through, no answers whatsoever. In this solipsism, recognition may lead the way. If not in the company of others, then in the mirror of the screen – in works like that of Nicole Kidman in Rabbit Hole…

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Nicole Kidman Tribute: Margot at the Wedding (2007)

by Eric Blume

With Margot at the Wedding, writer-director Noah Baumbach makes an Éric Rohmer film.  The character’s names are French, it’s lit like a French movie, cut like a French movie, and has the rhythms and languorousness of, specifically, a Rohmer movie.  But, and this may be a hot take:  Rohmer never made a film as textured and exquisite as the one Baumbach makes here.  Rohmer’s films often deal with an indecisive man-child choosing between two women:  there’s a lovely wistfulness about them, but they’re repetitive and limited in depth. 

Baumbach captures the Rohmer melancholia, but he fleshes out all the relationships in the film so they are deeply lived-in and layered. The film is all frayed edges, with unpredictable touches and uncomfortable complexities…

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Nicole Kidman Tribute: Bewitched (2005)

by Christopher James

Yes, I've come back here to defend another much-maligned Nicole Kidman comedy. I swear I love her dramatic roles too, but there's always something strange, special and unnerving about Kidman's comedy work, like seeing a dog walk on its hind legs and smile. 

Bewitched is Nora Ephron’s Ishtar - a big budget box office failure whose greatest crime is throwing too much against the wall. I’d always rather have a movie that tried to do too much outside of the norm, rather than something deeply middling. Bewitched is most interesting in the ways it swings and misses because Ephron and Kidman both give it their all, striking out gloriously. It’s as if the studio got one note (hire Will Ferrell) and decided to never check on the movie again. Their obviousness is our pleasure...

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Nicole Kidman Tribute: The Stepford Wives (2004)

by Christopher James

You never forget your first. My first Kidman - The Stepford Wives.

Is the movie good? I will always have a soft spot for it, but it does not fully work. There are glimpses of a great movie, thanks in large part to genuine laugh-out-loud joke lines in Paul Rudnick’s script. Not many people would recommend this as a first Kidman viewing, but it perfectly illustrates one of the qualities that I think makes her one of our greatest actresses - fearless commitment to one’s character. I take that back. The introduction of Joanna Eberhart is a perfect introduction to Nicole Kidman...

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Nicole Kidman Tribute: Chanel N°5: The Film (2004)

by Cláudio Alves

If someone asked me to come up with the definitive image of Nicole Kidman, I'm not sure I'd gravitate toward her work in movies or TV, nor even her red-carpet appearances. Instead, my mind would instinctually drift to that shot of industrial-grade glamour that once played at every primetime ad break. It's a Moulin Rouge! reunion and, in its way, a miniature remake with a contemporary twist. It's fashion distilled into a dream, a bespoke Lagerfeld-designed wardrobe, and a fragrance we can only imagine through the screen. It's Old Hollywood resurrected for 180 seconds of hyper-artifice and soft-focus glow, so beautiful it makes your heartache. It's Chanel N°5: The Film, of course…

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