Telluride: Nicole Kidman sizzles in noir potboiler ‘Destroyer’

One of the most anticipated films of the season, most especially because we had but a single still (above) and no trailer, Karyn Kusama’s Destroyer laid waste to Telluride, earning Nicole Kidman some of the best notices of her career. Likening her physical transformation to that of Academy Award winner Charlize Theron in Monster and being called “gritty” and “barrier-breaking.” Equally matched are Kusama’s reviews, with critics calling it “her best film since Girlfight” and “fiery” and “confident.”

Destroyer will next hit the Toronto International Film Festival before Annapurna releases the film on December 25th.

IndieWire‘s Eric Kohn:

Nicole Kidman is at the center of every scene in “Destroyer” and she becomes progressively more badass as it moves along. As Los Angeles detective Erin Bell, she’s broken, angry, and hellbent on revenge from the very first frame. The rest of the movie explains how she got that way, but Karyn Kusama’s fiery L.A. noir doesn’t need much backstory for Kidman’s attitude to register as genuine. For the first time since her gritty boxing drama “Girlfight” launched Michelle Rodriguez nearly 20 years ago, the filmmaker has delivered a movie propelled by the ceaseless energy of a woman wrestling to take control of her circumstances, no matter the physical toll.

Splash Report‘s J. Don Birnam: 

Nicole Kidman is without question one of the greatest actors of our generation. She has never been one to shy away from unconventional, norm-defying stories or roles, either. But it is a sad reality of Hollywood that as even the best of women age, their opportunities dwindle, or at least narrow. In Destroyer, however, a vehicle that makes her a strong contender for the Best Actress Oscar, Kidman has achieved her biggest feat yet—to show us that no genre should be off limits.

Twitter was mostly enamored with the film overall, with some exceptions:

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.

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