Nicole Kidman is legitimately one of the most beautiful women that has ever lived. The symmetry. The grace. The laugh. If Helen of Troy had looked like her that war would have been over in about a week.

She’s also a pretty good actress. It’s hard to imagine anyone else bringing it like Kidman did in Moulin Rogue, To Die For, Malice or Eyes Wide Shut.

Yes, I said Malice.

Unfortunately, now she’s Hollywood-old and those plum leading-lady roles she used to get are disappearing faster than Ben Affleck’s mini-bar.

So she’s made herself into a dirty pretty thing for director Karyn Kusama’s new film, Destroyer, which sees Kidman inhabit a role usually reserved for Carrie Ann Moss or Charlize Theron.

“Just give me the god-damn statue…”

It’s gritty. It’s bleak. It’s got voiceover. It’s hardstyle.

It’s different than anything we have ever seen her in. She looks all fucked up, inside and out. Remember that Nicole won the Oscar when she mussed herself up to play Virginia Wolfe in The Hours, which means she is guaranteed at least a nom here.

But just because this is bait for the gold-plate doesn’t mean it can’t be good.

From the official Annapurna synopsis:

Destroyer follows the moral and existential odyssey of LAPD detective Erin Bell who, as a young cop, was placed undercover with a gang in the California desert with tragic results. When the leader of that gang re-emerges many years later, she must work her way back through the remaining members and into her own history with them to finally reckon with the demons that destroyed her past.

Seems like Narc meets True Detective? I prefer the less existential IMDB logline:

A police detective reconnects with people from an undercover assignment in her distant past in order to make peace.

Doesn’t look to be a whole lot of “peace” being made or found in this trailer:

Annapurna has been axing a lot of edgy productions lately as Father Ellison tightens the reigns on Megan Ellison’s flights of creative fancy; that Destroyer escaped the chopping block could speak to its quality. Or it could be that they just want to make a push for the Oscar that eluded them for their 2012 masterpiece, Zero Dark Thirty.

But it’s really all academic. The most important and profound question raised by Destroyer is: “How can we convince Sandy to get filthy like this?”

Crom, I have never prayed to you before…