WOMEN WE LOVE: Nicole Kidman

Eroticism and power, and an unleashed sexuality under the powerful female gaze -- It's Babygirl, Nicole Kidman's latest film, which, before its premiere on the 25th, comes with a long line of hype. Rotten Tomatoes records a 90% score, and the positive reviews seen unanimous. The BBC even goes so far as to say that it is one of Kidman's best performances: "Kidman's lack of vanity in these scenes makes this her bravest and best performance in quite some time."

The National Board of Review also nominated it as one of the best films of the year, and Kidman was awarded the Best Actress prize. Directed by the Dutch director Halina Reijn, the film revolves around the love triangle formed by a high-powered CEO (Kidman), her husband (Antonio Banderas), and her intern (Harris Dickinson), a man much younger than she is and with whom she has a torrid love affair. It's an erotic thriller which speaks of control and uncontrollable desire, always from the female perspective.

Since it began in 1983 with the drama film Bush Christmas (1983), Nicole Kidman's career includes nearly a hundred projects and many awards, including an Oscar, a BAFTA, 2 Emmys, and 6 Golden Globes. And right now, she is involved in 5 more projects: the just-released mystery drama TV show "The Perfect Couple" on Netflix, the continuation of Paramount+'s spy thriller "Lioness", Lulu Wang's acclaimed Prime Video drama series "Expats", the docu-drama "Scarpetta", and the highly-anticipated third season of the Emmy Award-winning HBO series "Big Little Lies".

Her frenetic work pace now is the equivalent of a 40-year career working tirelessly. Her first big hit was the psychological thriller Dead Calm (1989), which the New York Timesincluded among one of the 1000 best films ever made. The plot of the film focuses on a couple who are spending time alone in the middle of the sea and meet a foreigner who leaves a sinking ship. 

After that movie, the success didn't stop. With the satirical black comedy To Die For (1995), she won a BAFTA and her first Golden Globe for her portayal the ambitious Suzanne Stone, who was obsessed with being a world-famous broadcast journalist. Four years later, she would star alongside her then-husband Tom Cruise in the erotic mystery Eyes Wide Shut (1995), Stanley Kubrick's last film.

Other great films would follow, such as The Others (2001) and Moulin Rouge (2001), which earned her a second Golden Globe. But it was her role as Virginia Wolff in The Hours (2002) that earned her her first  Academy Award as well as a BAFTA, a Golden Globe, and a Silver Bear from Berlinale. In The Hours, Kidman takes the tormented soul of Wolff to the limit, close to madness. Wolff's lucidity, pain, self-destruction, and talent crystallize in the interpretation by Nicole Kidman, who completely transforms into her character. One of the most intense scenes is when she buries a dead bird. Kidman's gaze, fixed on the bird's death, jumps out of the screen.

In recent years, Kidman has been active in her fight to empower women in film as directors. Since 2017, she has worked with 15 female directors. By doing this, she increases the number of women in the industry, as she herself explained on "The Graham Norton Show".

Whether with men or with women in the director's chair, the truth is that Nicole Kidman has managed to be an actress capable of transforming herself into all possible women. From the vulnerable and terrified Rae Ingram in Dead Calm, the voluptuous Satine in Moulin Rouge, or the tormented Virginia Wolff in The Hours, in all cases, Kidman makes the characters her own with great interpretative intensity. It doesn't matter if she plays a powerful and passionate CEO in Babygirl or the legendary comedian Lucille Ball in Being the Ricardos (2021) -- Nicole Kidman disappears to transform into her character. She is pure acting and pure cinema, and without a doubt, she is one of the greatest!