by Nathaniel R
One of the screenwriters of the sun-blasted crime thriller Destroyer, describes the movie as "a detective investigating herself." Allowing a screenwriter rather than the reviewer to pigeonhole their movie may be an abdication of duty, but an appropriate one; Destroyer has long gone rogue, flashing its badge but totally off the clock. Even the LAPD, which we all know has behavioral trouble of its own, wouldn't approve of Detective Erin Bell's (Nicole Kidman) "police work" in the real world.
You can't imagine that she'd still be allowed that badge given her AWOL behavior and frequent intoxication but realism isn't what Destroyer is after. Director Karyn Kusama, introducing the movie at TIFF told us to "enjoy" it, providing her own finger quotes around the word, betraying a welcome sense of humor which is unfortunately little seen within the film. But again, levity is not what this relentless film is after...
While Destroyer is dressed in familiar movie tropes and character types (troubled anti-hero cop, angry neglected kid, worried less reckless partner, nihilist villain, heist gone wrong, etcetera) to its credit, it manages to be its own experience. While there is a plot that you can piece together bit by bit, the movie is more of a doubled spiralling-descent character study than a traditional story. In both the present and the past, we're in ticking time bomb mode. In the present, it's clear that Bell is the time-bomb. From the visual evidence, she hasn't slept in years and consists on little more than alcohol and regret. She walks with a strange faltering gait as if she'd keel over at any moment but for her dogged persistence and rage. She's investigating a man named Silas (Toby Kebbell) who she fears is back in criminal business after a long disappearing act. Sixteen years previously, as we see in alternating flashbacks, Bell went undercover with another officer (Sebastian Stan) to infiltrate Silas's gang as they planned a big robbery.
We know from the beginning of the film that the heist will go spectacularly wrong having already seen the future Bell. She's a living ghost, wandering LA in her police car, haunting mostly herself... and occasionally former Silas associates like Petra (the memorably itchy Tatiana Maslany, also now worse for the wear in the present, though not as emphatically). The perpetually flipping contrast between Bell's younger vibrant self (which looks like our own Nicole Kidman) and this haggard shell of a person at first defies belief. Still, Kidman manages to tie the two women together as one individual with the same unnerving way of staring into the abyss, whereever she's looking. [Minor Spoiler] In one climactic scene, late in the film after tragedy strikes, the actress emits a scream so terrifying and ragged, so full of rage and self-loathing, that I fully understood how she was only a shell of herself thereafter. The sound carried everything good out with it, leaving only pain behind. [/Spoiler]
Destroyer is always looking at itself, not wondering exactly how it got there, per se, but turning over the events again and again; investigation as self-punishment. This effect is amplified by the movie's strong cinematography by Julie Kirkwood, which continually blasts the characters with unforgiving sunshine and dials up the ice blue of Kidman's bloodshot eyes. In one of Destroyer's best scenes, Erin visits a lawyer (Bradley Whitford) who she believes is laundering money for Silas. He's not easily intimidated and mocks her relentless obsession with Silas's crimes. He tells her that the thing that separates the successful people from the mortals is that they know how to let things go and move on. Erin clearly can't and didn't come to his house for a self-help lecture, anyway. The rage in her haunted stare gets scarier with every beat though her eyes rarely move. It's unclear whether she's listening to him or to her inner demons howling, or both, but she hates the relentless noise and herself for listening at all. The scene is interminable and you never know when it will explode... only that it will. This is how Destroyer makes you feel: battered, unsettled, and eager to escape despite knowing that that's futile. It haunts.
Director Karyn Kusama reaches for mythological power in Destroyer, arguably too overtly, as the film carries a rather large sense of itself with its repetitions, eery soundscape, bravura star turn, grand suffering and death-wish. The blinding sun of Destroyer's memorable Los Angeles gaze might recall Icarus, flying too close to the sun, but its soul is all Prometheus. In the myth Prometheus having stolen from the gods, is chained to a rock where his insides will be eaten each day by an eagle for all eternity. Detective Bell needs neither gods for her sentencing nor eagle for tormenter; she chains herself to the past and devours.
Grade: B+
Oscar Chances: Nicole Kidman's Best Actress nomination would be a sure thing in a weaker yet. But she still has a great shot given the dual nature of the performance, pairing an impossible to miss external "transformance" with unforgiving internal acting. (Otherwise, the movie will likely be a tough sell with Oscar, given its genre and general misery.)