Destroyer

A superb central performance and an impressive aesthetic design elevate a quotidian plot

I think women are constantly reminded of the biological circle of life, the giving of life, the end of life, and I feel like we are so defined by and bound to our biological capabilities. I wanted to imagine the masculine construct of narrative filmmaking in Western civilisation having a different feeling. And to me, there is something about the circular shape of the story that begs for reconsideration of everything you've just seen. It invites a deeper look, a recontextualising. And I feel lik__e that process, which is quieter, and demands insight and self-reflection is inherently female or feminine, given the culture we live in right now, which is so fast, so aggressively linear, and in many respects, completely unreflective. So there was just something to me about the idea that the audience is put into this female psyche, as damaged as it is, and then forced to reconsider it from a new angle. That felt radical in narrative storytelling terms.

• Karyn Kusama; "'Maybe at this point I equate femaleness with being radical': Karyn Kusama on Destroyer" (Tasha Robinson); The Verge (January 17, 2019)

In a career spanning nineteen years, the output of director Karyn Kusama has been chequered, to say the least, with her oeuvre ranging from the excellent (Girlfight, The Invitation) to the average (Jennifer's Body, her section of the horror anthology XX) to the unwatchable (Æon Flux). With Destroyer, she once again teams with writers Phil Hay (to whom she is married) and Matt Manfredi, having previously worked with the duo on Æon Flux and The Invitation. Partly a film noir along the lines of Robert Siodmak's The Killers (1946) or John Huston's The Asphalt Jungle (1950); partly an anti-hero narrative depicting someone taking the law into their own hands, à la Don Siegel's Dirty Harry (1971), Michael Winner's Death Wish (1974), or Abel Ferrara...

Starring... Nicole Kidman's Wig and Fake Crow's Feet

The final moments of this film came with what was supposed to be a dramatic fade out of the haggard, liver-spot riddled face of the protagonist evaporates into what is supposed to be wave of glorious white light. Only there is no glory in this film. As we are reminded at the end as we stare at the barely human image of latex over-spray clogging Ms. Kidman's nostrils, we have to wonder what would have possessed her to take this role. Most of her acting in the film consists of her proving apparently that beautiful actresses who collectively spend the GDP of a small nation to look forever young can play dress-up and do boring and ugly on request. I found it to be an affront to both quality acting and homely women.

The plot is a redemption arc turned on its head with a twist of non-linear story-telling and "hide the salami" which attempts to maintain the audience interest by forcing to piece together who is who and what happened when. Not in a nose-bleed Tenet way, but in an "OMG! I can't believe that's Nicole Kidman!" way. Ms. Kidman plays a leather-skinned, bag-of-bones alcoholic who belongs in a trailer park! Could the producers have found a powerhouse actress to carry this film without 10 pounds of latex applied to her face? Of course. But in recognition of how flimsy the plot line was, they opted to follow the trend of other productions (e.g., Guy Piece playing Peter Weyland under more latex than his body weight) who prefer to retain a-list stars. The shock and awe of Ms. Kidman's appearance wears off after about the thirteenth close up of her staring into space looking tired and haggard and walking like her legs have atrophied.

As bad as that sounds, it gets worse. The moralizing (and there is constant moralizing) in this film is not just confused, but goes nowhere. The good mom-bad mom idea fails as we have no clue about why Kidman's character didn't manage to do something at least somewhat decen...