Oscars 2010: If We Picked the Winners (Best Actress)
5. Nicole Kidman - Rabbit Hole
Nicole Kidman lives and breathes melodrama, which means as a general critic of the genre, you won't see me signing up to be the president of the "Nicole Kidman Fanclub" anytime soon. I find her performances quite often to be too self-conscious and mannered for my taste, and the movies she appears in are often worse than that. Surprisingly though, Rabbit Hole is an effective movie (especially relative to its typical peers), and this is in part due to a decent performance from Ms. Kidman. The strongest part of the film, as well as Kidman's performance, is in her interaction with the young man who accidentally killed her young boy in a tragic traffic accident. The connection between the two characters is very tepid, almost laid back, as neither person (especially the young man) knows quite how to act in this situation. As the frequency of the meetings grow though, both characters are able to become slightly more comfortable with one another, engaging in real meaningful conversations that serve as a cathartic process for both people. As good as her performance is in these scenes though, they are some painfully weak moments whenever she has to show how bitter and angry her character has become. During the confrontational climax of the film, when, after nipping and biting at one another throughout the film, Nicole Kidman and Aaron Ekhart's husband and wife characters finally have it out, all of Kidman's "I'm angry" mannerisms come off as painfully premeditated and non-naturalistic. In all parts of the film where she is portraying her bitterness, something just doesn't click right. While this sort of response to the death of a young child is definitely plausible, something about Kidman's portrayal is just too self-aware, someone imitating a devastated grieving mother instead of inhabiting that character. Overall, Kidman's performance is a mixed bag. When she's good, she's good; when she's bad, she's bad. The good probably outshines the bad by a small margin, but not enough for me to rank her above any of her fellow nominees.
Nicole Kidman lives and breathes melodrama, which means as a general critic of the genre, you won't see me signing up to be the president of the "Nicole Kidman Fanclub" anytime soon. I find her performances quite often to be too self-conscious and mannered for my taste, and the movies she appears in are often worse than that. Surprisingly though, Rabbit Hole is an effective movie (especially relative to its typical peers), and this is in part due to a decent performance from Ms. Kidman. The strongest part of the film, as well as Kidman's performance, is in her interaction with the young man who accidentally killed her young boy in a tragic traffic accident. The connection between the two characters is very tepid, almost laid back, as neither person (especially the young man) knows quite how to act in this situation. As the frequency of the meetings grow though, both characters are able to become slightly more comfortable with one another, engaging in real meaningful conversations that serve as a cathartic process for both people. As good as her performance is in these scenes though, they are some painfully weak moments whenever she has to show how bitter and angry her character has become. During the confrontational climax of the film, when, after nipping and biting at one another throughout the film, Nicole Kidman and Aaron Ekhart's husband and wife characters finally have it out, all of Kidman's "I'm angry" mannerisms come off as painfully premeditated and non-naturalistic. In all parts of the film where she is portraying her bitterness, something just doesn't click right. While this sort of response to the death of a young child is definitely plausible, something about Kidman's portrayal is just too self-aware, someone imitating a devastated grieving mother instead of inhabiting that character. Overall, Kidman's performance is a mixed bag. When she's good, she's good; when she's bad, she's bad. The good probably outshines the bad by a small margin, but not enough for me to rank her above any of her fellow nominees.