Days of Thunder (1990)
CAST
Tom Cruise
Robert Duvall
Nicole Kidman
Randy Quaid
Cary Elwes
Michael Rooker
Producers: Jerry Bruckheimer, Gerald R. Molen, Don Simpson
Director: Tony Scott
Writers: Robert Towne, Tom Cruise
Days of Thunder begins with a Daytona 500 race and the announcement that a driver has dropped out of he lineup. It is a setup for race team owner Tim Daland (Randy Quaid) to cajole Harry Hogge (Robert Duvall), a retired pit boss, to come out of retirement and build a car for him. Hogge, reluctant and a bit testy, tells him that he needs to first find a competent driver. Daland invites him out to the track to watch his driver, Cole Trickle (Tom Cruise), take a turn or two around the track, Impressed, Hogge agrees to build the car and work as pit boss.
After several unsuccessful races, Hogge and Trickle have a verbal fight, after which Trickle admits that he is insecure because he can’t “talk car.” Hogge and Trickle patch up their areas of disagreement and Trickle goes on to become a winning driver. Nicole Kidman, who plays the role of Dr. Claire Lewicki, an Australian neurosurgeon, enters the picture when Trickle and another driver are involved in a serious accident.
The remainder of the movie deals with Trickle’s ability to deal with his fears about racing, his confusion over his romantic relationship with Dr. Lewicki, and his discovery of a world that is essentially a sub-culture with its own rules and expectations.
Billy Bathgate (1991)
CAST
Dustin Hoffman
Nicole Kidman
Loren Dean
Bruce Willis
Steven Hill
Steve Buscemi
Billy Jaye
John Costelloe
Timothy Jerome
Producers: Robert F. Colesberry, Arlene Donovan
Director: Robert Benton
Writers: E. L. Doctorow (novel), Tom Stoppard
Organized crime has always done well at the box office, so who could blame director Robert Benton for taking a swing at the genre. Loosely based on the organized-crime syndicates of the 1920s and 1930s, Billy Bathgate (the title role of which is played by Loren Dean) is about a young man’s entry into a life of crime, from the ground floor.
His boss is Dutch Schultz (a real-life gangster played by Dustin Hoffman), whose fictionalized and romanticized life is used as a backdrop for Billy’s coming of age story. It is a journey into manhood that gets a hormonal boost when he falls in love with Schultz’s mistress, Drew Preston (a married woman played by Nicole Kidman). As the characters move through assorted violence and nudity (all Nicole’s doing), it becomes apparent that the real theme of the movie is survival—that is, who will be left standing at the end of the movie.
Far and Away (1992)
CAST
Tom Cruise
Nicole Kidman
Thomas Gibson
Robert Prosky
Barbara Babcock
Cyril Cusack
Eileen Pollock
Colm Meaney
Douglas Gillison
Michelle Johnson
Producer: Ron Howard, Brian Grazer
Director: Ron Howard
Writers: Ron Howard, Bob Dolman
The story begins in the 1890s in Ireland, where Joseph Donnelly (Tom Cruise), the impoverished son of a farmer, is forced to flee his homeland after the death of his father, to make a new life for himself in America. Accompanying him is Shannon Christie (Nicole Kidman), the daughter of the well-to-do landowner who owned the land that Donnelly’s family farmed. In the beginning, the couple had a strictly platonic relationship (both are suspicious of the other’s intentions), but after suffering a series of hardships in America they discover that they are meant for each other. They break up after Christie is shot in a bungled robbery attempt (they were starving and only broke into the house to find food). Donnelly leaves her behind with her former suitor, who has followed her to America, and he goes out West to make his fortune. This is a slow-moving film that does not get its legs until the end, when Donnelly and Christie find themselves competing for land in the same land rush. Nicole seems uninspired by the script and Tom seems confused about his character’s motivation.
Malice (1993)
CAST
Alec Baldwin
Nicole Kidman
Bill Pullman
Bebe Neuwirth
George C. Scott
Anne Bancroft
Gwyneth Paltrow
Peter Gallagher
Producers: Rachel Pfeffer, Charles Muloehill, Harold Becker
Director: Harold Becker
Writers: Aaron Sorkin, Scott Frank
In this heavily layered thriller, Nicole Kidman plays the role of Tracy Kennsinger, a teacher who seemingly is enjoying the good life with her husband, Andy (played by Bill Pullman), a dean at a women’s college. The story gets complicated at the get-go, with the rape of a student at the college and with the introduction into the household of Dr. Jed Hill, a surgeon played by Alec Baldwin. Tracy’s husband rents Hill a room because the surgeon has just moved to town and needs a place to stay—and because he and Tracy need the money to renovate their three-story home. Tracy professes to be unhappy with her new tenant, but she has a secret agenda that is slowly revealed through misdirection. Toward the end, there is one surprise after another as nothing is ever quite what it seems.
My Life (1993)
CAST
Michael Keaton
Nicole Kidman
Bradley Whitford
Queen Latifah
Producers: Herry Zucker, Bruce Joel Rubin, Hunt Lowry
Director: Bruce Joel Rubin
Writer: Bruce Joel Rubin
Bob Jones (Michael Keaton) is a public relations executive who learns that he has cancer. When doctors give him no hope of a remission, he decides to compile a video history of his life for his unborn child. He interviews himself, he interviews his family and his friends from grammar school—and he interviews his wife, Gail (Nicole Kidman). Most of the film deals with Jones’s lame attempts to get in touch with his feelings about his impending death. Nicole has a presence in the film, but since she whispers most of her lines, presumably to show respect for her husband’s affliction, she barely seems to matter in the story’s narrative development. This is one of her weakest performances, but that is due to the direction that she received and has little to do with her acting skills. Keaton’s character is so unsympathetic that by the end of the film, you are happy to see him go.
Batman Forever (1995)
CAST
Val Kilmer
Tommy Lee Jones
Jim Carrey
Nicole Kidman
Chris O’Donnell
Drew Barrymore
Producers: Tim Burton, Peter MacGregor-Scott
Director: Joel Schumacher
Writers: Lee Batchler, Janet Scott Batchler, Akiva Goldsman
This is the third Batman epic, with Val Kilmer replacing Michael Keaton as the Caped Crusader and Jim Carrey taking on the role of the obnoxious Riddler. Nicole Kidman plays Batman’s love interest, psychologist Dr. Chase Meridian. There’s not much plot to the movie—Batman goes up against two adversaries, the Riddler and Tommy Lee Jones’s Harvey Two-Face—but plot and character development are not at the core of the franchise’s success with moviegoers. Nicole delivers her lines well and she looks great, but that’s about all you can say about her performance in a movie that is all about Zap! Bam! Boom!
To Die For (1995)
CAST
Nicole Kidman
Matt Dillon
Joaquin Phoenix
Casey Affleck
Illeana Douglas
Buck Henry
Producers: Laura Ziskin, Jonathan Taplin, Joseph M. Caracciolo
Director: Gus Van Sant
Writers: Joyce Maynard, Buck Henry
To Die For begins with ne
ws coverage of a murder. As it turns out, the prime suspect is the local cable-television weather girl, Suzanne Stone Maretto (Nicole Kidman). She is charged with enlisting the help of three teenagers to kill her husband. This is not so much a murder mystery, since viewers have a good grasp of the situation early on, as it is a fascinating glimpse into the distorted mind of the supremely ambitious weather girl.
Nicole Kidman does an amazing job with this character, making her lovable, yet despicable, diabolically brilliant, yet simple-minded beyond belief—and perhaps best of all, icy cold, yet sensual. In one scene she dances to the music of “Sweet Home Alabama” in the headlights of her teenage boyfriend’s car, providing the sexiest cinematic moment of 1995. This movie is a must-see for Nicole Kidman fans.
The Leading Man (1996)
CAST
Jon Bon Jovi
Anna Galiena
Lambert Wilson
Thandie Newton
Nicole Kidman
Producers: Paul Raphael, Bertil Ohlsson
Director: John Duigan
Writer: Virginia Duigan
The Leading Man is about an arrogant American actor, Robin Grange (Jon Bon Jovi), who goes to London to star in a new play written by Felix Webb (Lambert Wilson). Felix is having an adulterous affair with Hilary Rule (Thandie Newton), the female lead in his play. When Felix’s wife learns of the affair, she makes life miserable for her husband, so much so that he persuades Robin to seduce her. A romantic quadrangle develops when Robin also seduces Hilary. The movie is very slow moving, but it has its moments. Nicole Kidman has a cameo role as an Oscar presenter.
The Portrait of A Lady (1996)
CAST
Nicole Kidman
John Malkovich
Barbara Hershey
Mary-Louise Parker
Martin Donovan II
Shelley Winters
Shelley Duvall
Producers: Monty Montgomery, Steve Golin
Director: Jane Campion
Writers: Laura Jones, based on the Henry James novel
Isabel Archer (Nicole Kidman) is an American who goes to England to visit her wealthy uncle, Mr. Touchett (John Gielgud). When he dies, he leaves her a fortune, setting her up for two predators who want to take advantage of her position of newfound wealth. John Malkovich plays the cold-hearted Gilbert Osmond, who marries her for reasons that are not entirely clear at first. Nicole’s Isabel Archer is a little on the cool side, but she is still the best thing about the movie.
The Peacemaker (1997)
CAST
George Clooney
Nicole Kidman
Marcel Iures
Aleksandr Baluyev
Rene Medvesek
Producers: Walter Parkes, Baanko Lustig
Director: Mimi Leder
Writer: Michael Schiffer
Nicole Kidman plays Julia Kelly, a nuclear scientist who heads up a government operation to investigate a nuclear explosion that occurs in Russia after a train accident. She soon learns that it was no accident and was staged to conceal the theft of other nuclear devices being transported on the train. She teams up with Thomas Devoe, a U.S. Army colonel played by George Clooney, in an effort to recover the devices before they can be used by terrorists. It was Nicole’s most physical role to date.
Practical Magic (1998)
CAST
Sandra Bullock
Nicole Kidman
Stockard Channing
Dianne Wiest
Goran Visnjic
Aidan Quinn
Evan Rachel Wood
Alexandra Artrip
Mark Feurerstein
Caprice Benedetti
Producer: Denise DiNovi
Director: Griffin Dunne
Writers: Robin Swicord, Alice Hoffman (book)
Practical Magic is about two sisters, Sal Owens (Sandra Bullock) and Gilly-Bean Owens (Nicole Kidman), who must live with the curse of family witchdom handed down to them from Puritan days. Each sister handles it differently: Sal marries and settles down, while Gilly-Bean falls in love with every man that comes her way. Their lives are complicated when they kill—sort of by accident—one of Gilly-Bean’s suitors. When the sisters try to use black magic to bring him back to life, the situation only gets worse. Their situation becomes complicated further when Sal falls in love with the police detective sent to investigate the man’s disappearance.
Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
CAST
Tom Cruise
Nicole Kidman
Madison Eginton
Jackie Sawiris
Sydney Pollack
Leslie Lowe
Peter Benson
Todd Field
Michael Doven
Sky Dumont
Louise J. Taylor
Gary Soba
Producer: Stanley Kubrick
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Writers: Frederic Raphael, Stanley Kubrick, Arthur Schnitzler (book)
Tom Cruise plays Bill Harford, a doctor who samples the sexual offerings of New York City, always as a voyeur and never as a participant, after his wife Alice (Nicole Kidman) tells him that she once fantasized about having a sexual affair with a naval officer they met in passing while on vacation. There is no plot, per se—only the impressions of Bill and Alice as they deal with the realities of their marriage, realities that are complicated by a mysterious death and a descent into the secret sexual rituals of the city’s social elite. Nicole performs the most sexually explicit scenes of her career in this movie.
Moulin Rouge (2001)
CAST
Nicole Kidman
Ewan McGregor
Jim Broadbent
John Leguizamo
Richard Roxburgh
Kylie Minogue
Jacek Koman
Caroline O’Connor
Matthew Whittet
Kerry Walker
Garry McDonald
Producers: Steve E. Andrews, Fred Baron, Martin Brown, Catherine Knapman, Baz Luhrmann, Catherine Martin
Director: Baz Luhrmann
Writers: Baz Luhrmann, Craig Pearce
Impoverished writer Christian (Ewan McGregor) goes to Paris to write about love, even though he has never experienced it. He quickly falls in with Toulouse-Lautrec and a rowdy band of Bohemians who want to sell a show to the Moulin Rouge nightclub. As it happens, the club’s owner Harold Zidler (Jim Broadbent) needs a financial backer and decides to use the proposed show to attract The Duke of Monroth. The story gets complicated when both Christian and Duke fall in love with the nightclub’s consumptive star Satine (Nicole Kidman). Nicole sings and dances her way through the movie, giving one of her most energetic performances of her career, one that earned her a nomination for an Academy Award.
The Others (2001)
CAST
Nicole Kidman
Fionnula Flanagan
Alakina Mann
James Bentley
Christopher Eccleston
Eric Sykes
Elaine Cassidy
Renee Asherson
Gordon Reid
Keith Allen
Michelle Fairley
Nicole Kidman: A Kind of Life Page 25
