Stoker, and the evolution of Nicole Kidman

Anyway, now I've that off my chest, Stoker was a better film than I was expecting. Its got Mia Polishname in the lead, Ozymandias from Watchmen as a creepy uncle, and Nicole Kidman as the simpering mother.

The main problems the film has isn't the script, the story or the dialogue. It's the cast.

The first is that Mia Wasikowska (is that right? Wikipedia....Awesome, first attempt!) is playing 18 year old high school student India, and to me looks her real age, which is mid-twenties. It's a minor thing, and films do it all the time, but normally the actor makes up for the gap by acting like a teenager. The main point of India's character is that she is sombre, withdrawn and quiet, with a sepulchral outlook on things. She reminds me a bit of Winona Ryder's character in Beetlejuice, except without the blatant goth posing and pontificating, which results in her just appearing mature. She does a damn good job in the lead, though, and by the end I didn't mind that I could have just as easily believed she was 30.

The other problem was not so easily forgotten, and affected the entire tone of the film for me.

Matthew Goode (Ozymandias from Watchmen) plays the sinister, mysterious Uncle Charlie. The way the music goes when he's on screen suggests that he's meant to be foreboding, handsome but dangerous, sexy and fatal all at once.

This is Matthew Goode.

Not bad, right? Handsome, but still murdery. A man who looks best either chatting up a girl with a martini, or with a chloroform-soaked rag. And he's an actually pretty good actor too.

It's not his fault, that to my mind at least, he strikes an uncanny resemblance to this man:

This is Jake Shears, of the Scissor Sisters, in the only headshot photo that does their resemblance any justice. Jake normally looks like this:

It might just be me, but this really interrupted what was meant to be a heightening tension in the film, as the audience became privy to the unsavoury intentions of evil Uncle Charlie. Whenever he was on the screen, instead of feeling the mounting danger, I just kept thinking "Christ, he really does look like Jake Shears."

It just made it sort of funny for me.

So when we have a suspenseful scene full of implied feelings of barely restrained incest, like this one:

"Nothing wrong with a bit of piano foreplay with your niece.."

I think:

Nothing is more dangerous than a sailor. An incestuous sailor.

Despite this, I don't think it damaged my enjoyment of the film in the slightest. In fact, it made it better, because it reminded me of the Scissor Sisters, and I love the Scissor Sisters. And like I said, both Mia Wasikowska and Matthew Goode do a pretty fantastic job throughout.

The last problem I had was with the last main cast member, so we've sort of got problem per actor.

This problem is Nicole Kidman.

There was once a time when Nicole Kidman was my favourite actor. Right around the Moulin Rouge time, in fact.

My expression whenever I see my landlord's girlfriend.

Just look at that expression. You don't need to know anything about that film to have a guess as to what is happening in that scene. Satine (Nicole) has just heard something that is quite alarming but she can't express said alarm outright. But Ms. Kidman's beautifully groomed eyebrows tells us just what Satine is thinking (which I imagine to be along the lines of "you're kidding!", "the fuck?!", "I'm going to talk to Zidler about paying extra for this sort of shit," whatever you want).
If you have not seen Moulin Rouge, please do and watch how much fun Nicole is throughout the entire film.

Play a game with the next group of pictures, and see if you can see what sort of emotion Nicole is portraying.

First:

There she is, the Sparkling Diamond!

I'll play too, although I have seen this film before, so I will always win, which is how I like to play.

First answer: Fuuuun!

I like nice little poet, right after supper!

.

The emotion: secret lust.

Poetic enough for you?

Feigned, OTT lust.

"DON'T LEAVE ME THIS WAY!"

Sheer desperation and pleading.

Just going through the Google Image search results for "Nicole Kidman Moulin Rouge" has reminded me of the mad love I had for that film, and Nicole, when it first came out (I refuse to google the actual date, lest it make me feel old.)

Since Moulin Rouge, Nicole Kidman has had less opportunity to show off her range. Look at these screenshots from her films since Moulin Rouge, and play the same game.

Cold Mountain:

She's angry, and serious.

She's serious. And maybe angry.


Australia:

Happy?
Seriously, I had no idea what she was meant to be feeling throughout the duration of that entire film.

You get the idea, she hasn't been quite as expressive as she previously has been, and her characters have seemed weaker for it.

In Stoker, her character is meant to be flighty and unstable, and so I guess it's a sign of Nicole's ability when she irritated the sh*t out of me.

But even when she had more emotional scenes, like the one below:

Angry, sad, murderous? It has gotten more basic with ol' Nicky

I just felt a bit  bored, and nostalgic. She has played so many bland characters, it's starting to imprint on my brain now.

"Oh look, Nicole Kidman, being bland," is basically my reaction when I see her.

She's joined a growing group of other actors who are talented, but keep picking naff films, or turning in naff performances (cough cough, Milla Jovovich.) This is particularly weird for Nicole, because she tends to do more arty films than other actors, which normally is a "oooh, interesting" thing. But even in those films, she has basically the same reactions and emotions, and keeps talking in that soft, little girly voice to everyone.

Please Nicole, please go back to being awesome. We all know you can.


So, erm, is Stoker any good? The short answer is yes, it's probably the most thought-provoking and well done thriller this year.