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A30 PEOPLE & ARTS
Monday 7 January 2019

Nicole Kidman as a hardened LA cop in ‘Destroyer’

By JAKE COYLE detectives, familiar with an empty shell of a wom-
Associated Press her hard-drinking apathy, an, estranged from her
A different Nicole Kidman don’t take her seriously. teenage daughter Shelby
stares out at us under the Looking over the dead (Jade Pettyjohn). In a series
harsh Los Angeles sun of body, she sees a dyed $100 of encounters across a sun-
the neo-noir “Destroyer.” bill that triggers a memory, baked and sinister Los An-
The actress who famously one that for Bell never re- geles, she draws ominously
donned a prosthetic nose ceded into the past, any- closer to both Silas and her
for “The Hours” has here way. She knows who did it, past.
gone to greater and grittier she says in a hoarse, rasp- It’s been a while since
lengths of transformation. ing voice. Silas is back, she we’ve had a Los Angeles on
Her eyes are sunken. Her This image released by Annapurna Pictures shows Nicole later tells a confidant. screen like this one. Gone is
skin is hardened. Her stare Kidman in a scene from “Destroyer.” Taking up what seems to be the rainbow-colored play-
is provocatively hollow. She Associated Press her first case in years, Bell ground of “La La Land,”
looks dead inside — nearly ing, it’s to impress upon you from her past. But while embarks on a quest for the back is the underbelly Mi-
so on the outside, too. the masterful changeabil- “Destroyer” can be over- Silas in question, a ruthless chael Mann so memorably
Such metamorphoses ity of the actor beneath all wrought and mechanical, gang leader (Toby Kebbell) trafficked in. For noir-heads
have long been standbys the makeup and wig. it’s an often gripping, well- whom Bell became close to like myself, that feels good.
of Oscar seasons both past Karyn Kusama’s “Destroy- crafted crime drama with 16 years earlier in an under- Kusama (“The Invitation”)
(Charlize Theron in “Mon- er” presses a little too much, distinction of its own in the cover operation with her has a muscular grip on the
ster”) and present (Chris- in both Kidman’s showily genre, an almost always partner-turned-boyfriend locale and the material, in-
tian Bale in “Vice”). “Near- chameleonic performance male-dominated one. Chris (a first-rate Sebastian cluding a handful of rivet-
ly” unrecognizable is the and in the relentlessly grim We meet Det. Erin Bell (Kid- Stan). The job ended tragi- ing set pieces.
goal, not actually disap- and fragmented tale of man) as she stumbles to a cally, we can tell, but the Those scenes and others
pearing. The point isn’t to a hardboiled L.A. detec- crime scene, cowering at full story will only be pieced gain something by being
forget who you’re watch- tive haunted by a trauma the morning sun. The other together throughout “De- staged from the perspec-
stroyer,” which toggles be- tive of the film’s antihero
tween the two timelines. protagonist. Bell is an un-
The schematic frame of apologetically corrupt de-
“Destroyer,” penned by Phil tective who thinks little of
Hay and Matt Manfredi, tampering with evidence
is equal parts frustrating or, to secure a desperately
and illuminating. The flash- needed tip, sinking much
backs, in which Kidman ap- lower. Her pursuit of Silas
pears more resplendently isn’t motivated by justice
herself, gradually explain but by vengeance and
how Bell came to be such soul-destroying guilt.q