Destroyer (2018)
Directed by Karyn Kusama
Written by Phil Hay, Matt Manfredi
Starring Nicole Kidman, Sebastian Stan, Toby Kebbell, Tatiana Maslany, Bradley Whitford
Release Date December 25th, 2018
Published December 22nd, 2018
Destroyer stars Nicole Kidman as Erin Bell, a former undercover cop turned burned out homicide detective. We get two sides of Erin Bell, her life when she was promoted from a Sheriff’s Deputy to being an undercover operative embedded in a bank robbery gang, to today when Erin looks as if life has her thoroughly defeated. Oftentimes simply being de-glammed is enough to make us take notice of a performance but Kidman brings a genuine edge that goes beyond her looks and manner in Destroyer.
We meet Detective Bell when she arrives in bad shape at a crime scene. At the scene, a body is laid out and Bell indicates she recognizes the corpse. Other detectives give us a strong sense of how Detective Bell is viewed by the rest of her department, they want her to leave the crime scene and let them handle it. That's likely because she looks as if she hasn’t slept in days and is in no shape to work. They have no idea how right they are.
Destroyer was directed by the ingenious Karyn Kusama who is best known for her debut feature, Girlfight, about a female boxer. That film was notable in a similar way to Destroyer in that Michelle Rodriguez took a traditionally male character and invested it with a uniquely feminine toughness. Kusama is also known for the horror movie Jennifer’s Body which in recent months has been getting another look from critics who’ve taken note of the strong feminist themes that run throughout Kusama’s work.
This is notable in Destroyer in how Kidman is playing the kind of hard bitten, cynical character usually reserved for male protagonists. Detective Bell has faults that we’ve seen before in male characters but that get flipped around with it coming from a female perspective and it does freshen up the cliche a great deal. Kidman doesn’t play up any mannish qualities, it’s just that the specific traits of this character are usually assigned to men.
It’s a fascinating performance and while I have focused too much on Kidman’s looks, I am doing so because her looks, the features, the worn, lived in, well-earned wrinkles and generally dishevelled look is an important part of this character. She's unvarnished for a reason, she’s given up on the basic comforts of life. Something so traumatic has happened that she’s turned most of her life over to either her job or to the hard drinking that helps to cope with the job and her memories, fears and shame.
She’s also neglected her daughter, Shelby (Jade Pettyjohn) who appears to be headed down a wrong path, one all too similar to Erin’s. The relationship between Erin and her daughter has always been strained; Erin found out she was pregnant on the same day that Shelby’s father was killed in a gun battle. I won’t spoil the role that this played in Erin’s undercover work or the dark secret she’s hiding throughout the film but all of it coalesces into Erin’s dark story in devastating fashion.
Toby Kebbell plays the main antagonist in Destroyer, a figure from Erin’s past whose return triggers a series of violent outbursts and leads to several bodies piling up. It’s a battle of wills with greed and revenge at the heart. Kebbell is a rather minimal presence physically in the film but his legend and his crimes hang over the entire story to the point where his appearances come to feel as if he is literally haunting Erin.
It’s an exceptional and unique way to tell a revenge story. Destroyer is minimalist in story presentation with dialogue building Kebbell’s villain into a monster and Kidman delivering on making Bell desperate and feral like a cornered animal as she pursues him. The way the story plays out is a shocker and a real clever one. Pay close attention or you might miss a couple key details that play into the ending. I can tell you, it’s both satisfying and bleak.
Destroyer is not a fun movie, it’s not an easy sit. The film is combative and pushy but Kidman’s performance makes it highly compelling. Kidman is Oscar-worthy not for her deglamorized look but for the grit that she brings to this character which combines vulnerability and street toughness into one of the most unique and yet familiar characters I’ve ever seen. It’s not just the novelty of a woman getting to portray characteristics typically assigned to male characters, Kidman makes Bell a uniquely fascinating figure, and for that, I recommend Destroyer.
