Nicole Kidman Tribute: Lion (2016)
Wednesday, July 3, 2024 at 9:00PM
Cláudio Alves in 2016, AFI, Australia, Best Supporting Actress, Dev Patel, Garth Davis, Lion, Nicole Kidman, Oscars (16), Sunny Pawar, biopics, racial politics

by Cláudio Alves

The late 2000s saw Nicole Kidman's reputation suffer under the strain of bad reviews and a perceived rejection by mainstream audiences. Jokes about plastic surgery were a dime a dozen, and not even a couple of brilliant turns could dissuade the naysaying masses. But then came Rabbit Hole and a third Oscar nomination, a new chance at proving herself. As usual, she took the opportunity and ran with it, kickstarting one of the most productive phases of her career. From 2010 to 2016, the actress amassed an astounding sixteen screen credits and appeared in the award-winning West End production of Photograph 51. It was also then, as Kidman settled into her 40s and came nearer to the half-century mark, that she started playing more supporting roles. 

Make no mistake, Kidman is a Hollywood leading lady, a confirmed A-lister to this day. But that doesn't preclude her from trying her hand at smaller parts. Coupled with revitalized prestige, a return to Oscar glory in a new category felt near inevitable. And so it was, with the star receiving her first Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination, for Lion…

Garth Davis' Lion tells the real-life story of Saroo Brierley, detailing how, twenty-odd years after his adoption into a white Australian family, the Indian-born man sought to find his biological relatives. Scripted by Luke Davies, the film is an adaptation of Brierley's non-fiction book, A Long Walk Home, taking on a split structure. The first half concerns five-year-old Saroo's separation from his family in Khandwa, ending up with his placement in a Calcutta orphanage. Soon after he gets adopted by the Brierleys and taken to Australia, the film jumps over two decades and switches its main actor. Sunny Pawar's Dickensian odyssey gives way to Dev Patel as the adult Saroo and the film all but switches genres. 

From an adoption melodrama spanning across continents, it becomes a character study inching its way into inspirational thriller territory if that's even a thing. The filmmakers want to make your heart beat faster as Saroo chases after leads, obsessing over his origins to the apparent detriment of every relationship. Since he was assimilated into the Australian middle class, cultural and even linguistic attachments to India feel insubstantial, complicating his mission beyond reasonability. In the end, though, he finds what he was looking for, prompting one of those docufiction finales calibrated for maximum tearjerker potential. 

It's a heartwarming tale that, by consequence of a production closely developed with the real-life counterparts, can't stray or question most of what it's depicting. This leaves the whole thing feeling superficial, well-appointed, and performed with, yet unable to explore latent themes. Interracial and international adoption, linguistic barriers, cultural assimilation into hegemonic forces, and a myriad of other ideas float above the movie, tantalizingly visible but always out of reach. It is never more evident than in the bond between Saroo and his adoptive parents – Sue and John – who feel growingly alienated as they watch their child struggle with his place in the world. 

In theory, it's great material, ripe for psychological and socio-political inquiries into these people's choices, what they mean to each other and how that changes over time. In practice, it bends to liberal platitudes far too often, toothless in the way all authorized biographies are. What's perhaps most disappointing is how little the cast goes against their script. While one can sense Patel's eagerness to illuminate Saroo's thornier facets and reconcile them with the picture's sentimental arc, the same can't be said about his colleagues. Even Nicole Kidman, an actress who's rarely passed on a chance to complicate her parts, feels timid in her approach. 

Or perhaps she's stifled, denied the latitude to question the words and direction given to her by Davis and Davies. It need not be anything nefarious, of course. The mere sense of responsibility in portraying an actual person with whom the production met could be enough. And it's not like one can say that a spikier Kidman turn would have helped Lion. When faced with some of the text's more dubious passages, the thought of an actor cutting through the big emotions in search of something more granular invokes visions of a completely broken movie. But before we get to that (in)famous scene, some groundwork is in order. 

Sue is first introduced through a photograph, a confusing idea to little Saroo before she ever becomes a person in the narrative's subjective device, much less a mother to the lost boy. When we finally see her, she's a vision of high expectations materialized in a demeanor best described as someone holding their breath past the point of comfort. Kidman is exquisite here, articulating the tentativeness of Sue and Saroo's first encounter, her eagerness to connect and engage with her son. To encourage, too. Notice how her eyes are drawn to him and rarely stray, even when acknowledging his chaperone might have been polite. 

In the car and at home, the actress does everything to suggest the bond between husband and wife, establishing Sue's enthusiasm in contrast to John's more contained affection, how they both see and understand each other. There are conspiratorial smiles and surges of tension, the unsureness of what coupled with the mortal need to get it right, to be the parents this boy needs right now. Her gaze is studious, curious, fascinated but never in a clinical way, never distant from the emotional responsibilities of parenthood. It's prelude for the powerlessness that's to follow, as the Brierleys take on another boy, Mackintosh, and things don't go nearly as smooth as they did with Saroo.

The second son's behavior suggests a disorder of some kind, a shock that leaves the parents unmoored. Kidman telegraphs immense heartbreak just by holding back, standing slack when John finally manages to calm the boy after her failed attempts. The woman's tears feel earned, and her distress strikes strong, painful to behold in the moment and later, as the scene echoes in memory and Kidman's face starts to overlap with one's own mother. If possible, the relationship with Mackintosh is even more bruising in his leave. Twenty years later, while having lunch with Saroo before he leaves for Melbourne, Sue's outward joy can't conceal a mother's concern for her other son, absent but never forgotten.

When Saroo visits home with his girlfriend, Lucy, Kidman plays up the motherly pride even as the night turns to shit with Mackintosh's appearance. Patel is a storm waiting to break into thunder, and Sue is a groundhog who can sense the weather change but is powerless to stop what's coming. Little neck movements, charged stares, a polite smile spasming into a frown holding back tears – Kidman goes through it all as an illusion of family peace crumbles in front of everyone's eyes. Most impressively, the actress ensures the viewer understands this scene isn't a new development. The Brierly family has lived through many such nights before. They are accustomed and calloused, their reactions almost automatic. 

Brotherly contempt, verging on hatred, punctures through the mother's unsteady comfort, destabilizing the delicate balance holding her together. It's especially hurtful when it comes hidden in filial concern, like the razorblade in Halloween candy. The expression on Kidman's face is hard to describe, so horribly recognizable it seems voyeuristic to see it on a stranger's face. There's disappointment there, a deep sorrow bleeding into anger, but not quite. It's a censorious thing, though one feels that the knife of judgment is pointed inward, whether out of purposeful martyrdom or instinctual mothering. 

Arriving at the film's most contentious moment, we have the monologue that surely secured Kidman the Oscar nomination. Thrown into despondency by family strife, Sue needs her boys, but when Saroo arrives, he says something that can't be unheard. "I'm sorry you couldn't have your own kids" startles her, even if Kidman barely moves, taking in the words and, for once, rebuking the son. Her delivery is incredible, defending Sue's choice not to have biological children with the pondered urgency of a mother trying to impart a critical truth to her son. It's a reclamation of personal purpose, standing for the meaning this woman has chosen for herself and her life.

And yet, Sue's vision of brown-skinned children needing her love is a calamitous piece of writing that suddenly summons topics Lion is incapable of considering. Play it less delicately, and it turns into the "little brown babies" spiel that won Ingrid Bergman a third Oscar in '74. On the page, it reads as neo-colonialism, and only the actress' efforts can salvage Davies' faithful but unwise representation of the real woman. Part of me wishes the scene wasn't there, or that Kidman cut through the schmaltz with some dissonant gesture. However, guileless sincerity is the only way to play such material. 

Grounding this speech in the character's truth so decidedly, it's as if the thespian is dissuading viewers from thinking critically on the subject. I should say that this is not a judgment of Sue Brierly as a person, or Saroo Brierly as an observer and writer of his family's history. It's only a questioning of the filmmaking decisions that got us here, and produced the scene in the first place. It's a dissatisfied reckoning with how it affects the piece as a whole, hurting Lion more than it helps. And while Kidman does an excellent job with what she's given, I wager the film would be stronger had she been given a different script on the day of shooting.

Reading back on everything I've written, I almost feel bad for being so harsh. Lion is beautifully made, transcending many of its biggest issues through craft and heart, as well as a committed cast. Though she doesn't redeem the text's most dubious passages, Kidman doesn't detract from the final work either. Truthfully, she gives the best performance imaginable for the role, keeping herself in line with her director and writer's vision for better and for worse. And she does a brilliant job of honoring the woman whose story she brought to the big screen. Also, all things considered, the characterization makes for a worthy Oscar nominee – and Film Bitch medalist.

For more effusive coverage, I recommend you read Nathaniel's 2017 cocktail with the Australian star and Jose Solís' interview with Saroo and Sue Brierley.

Previously in the Nicole Kidman TFE Tribute: 

 

Motherhood prevails as a theme for our next few Nicole Kidman write-ups. It's time to tackle 2017, the horror of The Killing of a Sacred Deer and the Emmy-winning glory of Big Little Lies.

Article originally appeared on The Film Experience (http://thefilmexperience.net/).
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