She is one of Hollywood’s best. But from the Netflix series “The Perfect Couple” to the erotic thriller “Babygirl,” Kidman is currently only playing one role: rich and superficial. That is also due to her forehead.
She has a thing for cunning anti-heroines. Nicole Kidman is ice cold in the new series “The Perfect Couple”.
Netflix
This is how you imagine a Hollywood celebrity. She is the epitome of a star. An apparition. Nicole Kidman is tall, graceful, ethereal, an alabaster-colored diva who could have come from another time. Botticelli would surely have loved to paint her. She looks like a flawless porcelain figure. But unbreakable.
To be precise, her name is Nicole Kidman AC, as she is the recipient of Australia’s second most important medal. Her proud demeanor is reflected on the screen. Her piercing blue eyes express determination; Kidman is often described as cold, but at the same time she makes her co-star (and audience) glow. Nicole Kidman is like a cold shower: you feel warm afterwards.
You can rely on her as a femme fatale: Early in her career, Kidman presented a trilogy of cunning anti-heroines with “Dead Calm,” “Malice,” and “To Die For.” But she can also do other things: in “Eyes Wide Shut,” she played the representative of female desire. In “Moulin Rouge!” she was dissolute, and in Lars von Trier’s “Dogville,” she was both victim and avenger. She has a remarkable “range,” as they say in the profession.
She has won 114 awards
The films speak for themselves. Nicole Kidman is also showered with awards. 114 awards are listed in the imdb.com database, including the Oscar for best actress for her portrayal of Virginia Woolf in “The Hours”. Last weekend in Venice she also won the Coppa Volpi for best actress. Her hard work is also being rewarded. Nicole Kidman is a hard worker; the 57-year-old has played almost a hundred roles, and adds two or three new ones every year.
Now she can be seen on Netflix in the miniseries “The Perfect Couple,” and just a few weeks ago the streamer released the romantic comedy “A Family Affair.” The Venice film “Babygirl” will be released in theaters in January.
In terms of quality and ambition, the three productions couldn’t be more different. “A Family Affair” is succinct commercialism. Kidman plays the writer Brooke, who ends up in the nest with washboard stomachs half her age (Zac Efron). And realizes: It must be love.
“The Perfect Couple” is not quite so shallow. But the series is also too drawn out. A rich man’s wedding is planned on Nantucket, then a body washes up shortly before the celebration. The police investigation causes the groom’s family facade to crumble. Kidman plays his mother Greer, a bestselling author who is difficult to read as a person. The murder mystery is enough for two or three evenings of “take-away” on the couch, after which you’ll want something decent.
Or something indecent: “Babygirl” is a wonderfully sleazy thriller. It feels like there hasn’t been one like it since “Basic Instinct”. At work, Romy (Kidman) as CEO of a robotics company can’t be efficient enough. When it comes to sex, however, her long-term husband (Antonio Banderas) is far too efficient for her. A devious intern (Harris Dickinson) comes along at just the right time and starts a shady game with the boss.
She embodies «longevity»
What is striking is that Nicole Kidman plays rich and beautiful three times. Brooke, Greer and Romy are self-confident and career-conscious women in their middle years who do not hide a certain vanity. Sexually, they want to try it again. Nicole Kidman seems to have found a new role for the current phase of her career; she plays “longevity”.
Of course, the role profile fits a 57-year-old Hollywood actress who experienced a fair amount of hype early in life. At 23, she married 28-year-old Tom Cruise, and they divorced a good ten years later. She has now been married to country pop star Keith Urban for almost twenty years. She lives in Nashville, a bit off the beaten track by Hollywood standards.
Nicole Kidman has probably had a phase of relative normality. Now she is daring to come out of hiding once again. But of course she is no longer young, whether she wants to be or not. And she probably doesn’t want to be. She is clearly trying to look ageless.
Her smooth face has been a source of speculation in the past. “I don’t have anything on my face. I wear sunscreen and I don’t smoke,” she said in a 2007 interview with “Marie Claire.” “To be honest, I’m completely natural.”
In an interview with “TV Movie” in 2011, she admitted that she had tried Botox, “but I didn’t like it.” She said that she no longer liked her face afterward. “Now I don’t use it anymore – I can move my forehead again!” To prove it, Kidman is said to have smiled at the interviewer and furrowed her brow.
Now it seems as if she has had a relapse. In her most recent film and TV appearances, her face looks smooth and her cheeks are as plump as plums. Her forehead wrinkles are just a hint. If I may be so cheeky: Nicole Kidman looks fake.
According to the Daily Mail, the star’s youthful appearance is probably due to “a combination of ultrasound skin tightening treatments and surgical procedures.” There is talk of a “vertical facelift with hidden incisions and upper and lower blepharoplasty, a procedure that improves the appearance of the eyelids.” Another expert suspects a Dysport course, which is particularly helpful for the neck region “to keep the platysmal nuchal fold in check.”
“To be honest, I’m completely natural,” said Nicole Kidman in 2007. The photo was taken at the premiere of “The Perfect Couple” two weeks ago.
Scott A Garfitt / AP
Das «Frozen Botox Face»
You probably don’t need to know that much. The point is: complications arise in front of the camera. Specifically, Nicole Kidman doesn’t seem to be able to smile properly anymore. Her mouth makes an effort to do so, but the upper third of her face doesn’t. The technical term is “frozen Botox face.” Those affected always look a little evil.
Now, you may find it intrusive to accuse an actress or an actor of having undergone physical surgery. Beauty is subjective, and if someone goes under the knife, you don’t have to tear them apart. Stephanie Zacharek, a leading American film critic, did exactly that years ago. After seeing Noah Baumbach’s comedy “Margot at the Wedding” in 2007, she asked herself and her readers: “What has Nicole Kidman done to her face?”
In his film review for Salon Magazine, Zacharek called it “disingenuous to pretend you don’t notice a change.” Kidman’s skin is undoubtedly beautiful. “But it has become her greatest limitation, a boundary she cannot grow beyond.” Zacharek then devoted several sentences to a scene in the film in which Kidman goes to “great lengths” to “frown.”
Zacharek was accused of sexism. In the next film, “Australia,” the critic went one step further and wrote of Kidman: “Her voice has a pleasant, bell-like tone and her body is a graceful marvel. But what about that forehead?” Zacharek suspected melamine. “Whatever it is, you could easily break an egg against it.”
Stephanie Zacharek is known for her sharp pen. But you rarely see the Pulitzer Prize winner so venomous. What is it that triggers her? After all, cosmetic surgery is old hat in the dream factory. To a certain extent, it is part of it; Hollywood wants it that way. Or rather, the audience wants it no other way. But with Nicole Kidman, things are obviously changing. The procedures are a distraction.
Alonso Duralde, another American critic, also took aim at Kidman. When, he asked, does the removal of wrinkles justify the destruction of an actress’s most valuable asset? “The face of an actress is her instrument, and without it she becomes a statue, a painting, a frieze.”
The complete exposure
Nicole Kidman was always a painting. That is precisely what she was admired for. The harsh reaction of critics to Kidman’s obsession with beauty exposes their own superficiality: by glorifying the star as a Venus figurine, they are partly responsible for Kidman clinging to it. She is trying desperately to preserve her image, like a reverse version of “Dorian Gray”.
At the same time, it is tragic to see how Nicole Kidman’s facial expressions are limited. She loses her “range”. Her choice of roles reflects this. But Nicole Kidman counters in her own way. In “Babygirl” she plays the CEO and gets Botox injections for Christmas. At home, her daughter is stunned. “What are you doing to yourself?” asks the nasty teenager, pulling his cheeks together mockingly: “You look like a dead fish!”
Many scenes in “Babygirl” are brave. Kidman’s character allows herself to be sexually humiliated by the intern, and the actress exposes herself in every way. But with the Botox dialogue, she exposes herself beyond the film, and the scene is perhaps the bravest of all. Kidman seems to be saying: “I’m above that.” It’s as if Nicole Kidman is laughing in the critics’ faces. As well as she can.
