美国国家公共电台 NPR LA Is Grim, And Nicole Kidman Is Grizzled, In 'Destroyer'

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NOEL KING, HOST:

This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Noel King.

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

And I'm David Greene. Nicole Kidman has been pretty busy. She is currently starring in three movies, as the queen of Atlantis in "Aquaman," as a supportive mother in the drama "Boy Erased¹" and as a broken-down LAPD detective in "Destroyer." That last one - a dark thriller² - comes out tomorrow. And let's just say it's a counterpoint to Christmas cheer.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "DESTROYER")

NICOLE KIDMAN: (As Erin Bell) I'm taking these with me.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) What? Hey.

KIDMAN: (As Erin Bell) Yeah. You want them back, call me with names.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) Don't do it, fool.

KIDMAN: (As Erin Bell) Call me with names.

GREENE: NPR's Mandalit del Barco interviewed Kidman and her director, Karyn Kusama, about the making of "Destroyer."

MANDALIT DEL BARCO, BYLINE³: In "Destroyer," Nicole Kidman looks like a hot mess - puffy, red eyes, dull, disheveled hair, no makeup⁴, weather-beaten.

In the opening scene, her character, LAPD Detective Erin Bell, lumbers⁵ out of the car she slept in all night. She hobbles like a wounded animal to a crime scene along the concrete bank of the LA River.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "DESTROYER")

KIDMAN: (As Erin Bell) Who is it?

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #3: (As character) No ID, no idea.

DEL BARCO: The raspy-voiced cop in a black leather jacket peers at a corpse⁶ with tattoos⁷.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "DESTROYER")

KIDMAN: (As Erin Bell) What about if I know who did this?

DEL BARCO: The film flashes back to when she was undercover with a gang planning a heist. And now, she hunts an old nemesis⁸. Here's Kidman's take on her character.

KIDMAN: I mean, Erin is complicated and damaged, angry, shameful⁹. When you meet her, she's on the road to trying to atone¹⁰ for a lot of the bad choices she's made and the things she's done that have caused damage to others.

DEL BARCO: Her character is in every scene of the film. She alternates between trying to counsel her wayward daughter...

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "DESTROYER")

KIDMAN: (As Erin Bell) I need to be able to find you.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #4: (As character) Why?

KIDMAN: (As Erin Bell) Because I just do.

DEL BARCO: ...To brutally¹¹ fist fighting her foes¹².

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "DESTROYER")

KIDMAN: (As Erin Bell, grunting).

She's tough, and she's capable of fighting, and she's capable of using weapons. And she's got demons¹³ as well.

DEL BARCO: Kidman says director Karyn Kusama had her prepare for the role by watching footage of wild coyotes.

KIDMAN: These female coyotes with their young'uns, and they're around the - in Silver Lake, around the reservoir, and they were shot by drones. And she had this footage, and I watched that. And that actually really penetrated¹⁴ my performance, strangely enough.

CLAUDIA PUIG: This is definitely the anti-Mary Poppins. But it's a very well-made thriller.

DEL BARCO: Claudia Puig is president of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association.

PUIG: It's very unusual for a woman to play the sort of hard-bitten, often amoral detective that we see a lot of men play. It's a pretty twisted and dark movie to go see on Christmas Day, but maybe the day after.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "DESTROYER")

KIDMAN: (As Erin Bell) I just want to talk.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #5: (As character) I don't know why you're...

KIDMAN: (As Erin Bell) Stop.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #5: (As character) You don't need to do this.

DEL BARCO: Detective Erin Bell chases down informants and travels through parts of Los Angeles rarely seen on film. In fact, the same location manager from "La La Land" scouted¹⁵ sites for "Destroyer" - skid¹⁶ row, a colossal¹⁷ self-storage facility between freeways, an old Chinese diner in the gritty MacArthur Park area.

(SOUNDBITE OF ENGINE REVVING)

DEL BARCO: As we drive around revisiting locations, director Karyn Kusama gives her vision of LA.

KARYN KUSAMA: Chaos¹⁸, beauty, ugliness, awe-inspiring transcendental grace. What makes Los Angeles so interesting is it's not just, frankly¹⁹, a beautiful city. In fact, there are many parts of it that are quite hard to look at, and then you can find yourself in some sort of pocket of paradise.

DEL BARCO: Kusama takes me and my editor Nina Gregory to a hidden patch of land where she shot a chase scene at night. We climb a rickety wooden staircase to get to a ridge²⁰ in Elysian Park. So from here, you can see the Hollywood sign.

KUSAMA: Yeah. We're pretty high, actually, right now in the city.

(SOUNDBITE OF GUNSHOTS)

DEL BARCO: Is that gunshots or fireworks?

KUSAMA: LAPD training - that's where they shoot.

DEL BARCO: Fitting.

KUSAMA: Yes (laughter). It is. It is.

DEL BARCO: With the sounds of the police academy firing range and a freight train in the distance, we walk through the forested area on an uneven²¹ concrete trail past graffiti-carved pine trees.

KUSAMA: There's prescription²² pill bottles and needles and old, broken-down baby carriages. I mean, it's an intense spot. And at night, it gets very intense.

(SOUNDBITE OF FOOTSTEPS)

DEL BARCO: We climb to the top of the hill to a grand vista²³.

KUSAMA: And here's Dodger²⁴ Stadium. Then you turn around, and there's downtown LA.

DEL BARCO: Wow, this is amazing.

KUSAMA: It is pretty great, right? And, yet, it's just abandoned. Here we are, standing²⁵ alone at the top of this perch²⁶ in urban LA.

DEL BARCO: Kusama's previous films include "Girlfight," from 2000, about female boxers²⁷. She directed the supernatural horror comedy "Jennifer's Body" and, most recently, a thriller called "The Invitation." All have strong female characters. She calls "Destroyer" a sunlit noir.

KUSAMA: Because so much of it is outside, and it's just so blindingly bright. Erin Bell proves to be both the detective and the femme fatale. In traditional noirs, women are tremendous troublemakers²⁸ and very important agents in the story, but they're never the lead. And in this case, she gets to be both.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

DEL BARCO: Kusama says "Destroyer" also harkens back to films from the 1970s, like "Klute."

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "KLUTE")

JANE FONDA: (As Bree Daniels) Why do I still want to trick?

DEL BARCO: And "Taxi Driver."

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "TAXI DRIVER")

ROBERT DE NIRO: (As Travis Bickle) You talking to me?

DEL BARCO: And "Dog Day Afternoon."

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "DOG DAY AFTERNOON")

AL PACINO: (As Sonny) He wants to kill me so bad he can taste it. Attica. Attica. Attica.

DEL BARCO: Kusama says with flawed, morally ambiguous, alienated²⁹ antiheroes, those films reflected the political climate of the times. She sees "Destroyer" in that same vein³⁰.

KUSAMA: It's much more about a feeling of despair, a sense of frustration³¹ with the larger culture and a sense that most regular people are marginalized by the system.

I feel a tremendous amount of that right now every day, and this is my way of trying to grapple with it because I like watching a character make some terrible mistakes and make small steps toward being morally accountable, taking some personal responsibility for her own actions. And, you know, that's something I think we could all use seeing more examples of.

DEL BARCO: In a year where the biggest box office successes have starred superheroes and dinosaurs³², "Destroyer" offers up a grim dose of reality for Christmas. Mandalit del Barco, NPR News, Los Angeles.

(SOUNDBITE OF THEODORE SHAPIRO'S "ECSTASY")