As part of its ongoing Moss-led march away from mediocrity, New York has launched a shiny new Movies section [via]. Its online incarnation is replete with broken and misdirected links [think capsule review mash-ups], but there's at least one piece that works. Adam Sternbergh, not afraid of the tough questions, asks "Why is Nicole Kidman so Hard to Love?"
She's a movie star, but one whose movies have gone largely unloved. She's never had that one defining hit: no Breakfast at Tiffany's, no Pretty Woman. Her best performances, in To Die For and The Hours, might be described as admirably brittle. Moulin Rouge!, a tsunami of karaoked pop songs, was hardly borne aloft by Kidman's charms. The Others, a spooky success, was, in essence, an extremely well-art-directed episode of Scooby-Doo. And this summer's Stepford Wives arrived stillborn. Perhaps audiences felt that, in watching Kidman play a feisty wife who subjugates herself robotically to her husband, they'd already seen this story played out in the tabloids, with better acting.
His is a compelling theory, and not just because he never once mentions botulism toxins.
