What Makes Nicole Kidman So Fascinating To Watch

2017 is undeniably the year of the Kidman-a-sons. But you've probably already heard that.

Here's our own short ode to Nicole Kidman. All this recent buzz aside, I'll admit I've always been partial to her charms as an actress.

How many actresses working in Hollywood today can say they straddle the line between Bewitched and The Beguiled,

or take on the likes of an arthouse titan like Stanley Kubrick or Lars von Trier for that matter.

But it was watching her performance as Celeste in Big Little Lies that reminded me that she's a master of communicating a wide breadth of affects through very minimal gestures,

presenting a subtext with direct emotionality. emotionality.

Small ticks of her face, a measured glance, a twitching lip all can work to conjure an expression of ambivalence.

And while this isn't something unique to Nicole Kidman,

I personally think she's one of the best at doing this today, next to maybe Isabelle Huppert, but that's for another video altogether.

On reflection, I've noticed she's been consistently doing this throughout her career.

It's often the moments of repose between tension and release that I find most memorable, as if I'm watching a character in the act of thinking and feeling itself.

And it's often the characters who seem to be struggling to find an expression at all that really fascinates me.

Somehow through what seems like the least amount of artifice, Nicole Kidman manages to present something utterly ineffable, and it's mesmerizing.

Take a look at this scene from the film Birth. Her character, Anne, is presented with a dilemma.

She's on the brink of marrying her fiancé, but something strange presents itself. Or rather, himself.

A young boy who claims to be the reincarnation of her dead husband.

Like any sensible adult, Anne resists the boy's claims.

But as we see her sit here for a considerable duration, something new emerges.

Doubt. The whole film pivots on the possibility that Anne could be convinced of this fantastic premise and in these few moments we get a glimpse into that zone of great uncertainty.

Nicole Kidman's face totally embodies it. It's

during performances like these where Nicole Kidman really unpacks the weight of ambivalence and the struggle to verbalize the ineffable and it's also why she remains one of my favorite actresses.

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