On the surface, Destroyer a typically brutal revenge fantasy action film, albeit distinguished by the casting of Nicole Kidman in the dissipated tough-cop-on-the-skids role.

The usually glamorous Kidman shows her impressive acting chops by playing the disheveled dirt-bag avenger who just doesn’t give a damn anymore. These scenes are intercut with flashbacks of her younger years in which the 50-something actress plays a vibrant 30-ish vixen in love. She is equally believable in both incarnations.

“It was one of the most magical creative collaborations I’ve had with an actor,” said director Karyn Kasuma, this week’s featured director. Kasuma continued:

“It’s a really rare and profound thing to see an actor want to go that deep and disappear. I’ve been doing a lot of press with her recently, and I keep looking at her like, ‘Oh right, that’s Nicole.’ Because I never really got to be with Nicole when I was making the movie. I was with Erin and it was a really interesting experience to see how deep she went.”

At the opening of Destroyer, L.A.P.D. detective Erin Bell is not doing well. Looking like a hung-over mess, she arrives at the scene of a “John Doe” murder, much to the annoyance of the investigating officers on scene.

The corpse has an identifying gang tattoo on the back of his neck and a few dye-pack-stained $100 bills are lodged under him, indicating a bank robbery. Bell insults her fellow officers, telling them she already knows who did it, and then shambles back to her car. She sits behind the wheel in silence, watching skateboarders attempting stunts.

Back at the station, Bell has mail: a single dye-pack-stained $100 bill in the envelope. The bill is from a bank robbery many years before that she and her then-partner took part in undercover, having infiltrated a youthful bank robbery gang led by an evil charismatic devil named Silas. Bell’s partner broke cover during the robbery in an attempt to save the life of an innocent bank teller. Silas shot him dead. Bell and her partner were lovers. Her precipitous mental and physical descent began with his death. Bell tells her superiors the dyed bill means Silas is finally running out of money from that last heist and is back in action. The dyed bill is a warning to her to not come after him. She does the opposite, wanting revenge for her dead lover.

The standard male-centric revenge film (e.g., “Death Wish”) centers on the protagonist’s singular obsession with avenging a murdered love interest. This female-centric story splits Bell’s driving motivation between avenging her lover and doing right by her estranged daughter, whom she was pregnant with at the time of her lover’s killing.

Daughter Shelby is now a troubled teen living with her stepdad, whom Bell married and divorced after her lover’s death. Shelby has a bad boyfriend and is on a bad path, which Bell is in no position to correct. In a late scene, Bell manages to have a significant heart-to-heart with Shelby, asking her forgiveness for the deficient mothering.

Shelby sums up their relationship with a childhood memory of being thrilled to be taken by her mother on a hike through the winter woods. But a blizzard blows up. Shelby remembers being reassured by her mother’s strength and determination to walk them out of the storm alive. But at the same time, the question: Why did Mom put them both in such danger in the first place?

Bell’s extreme risk to finally attain a stable life of love and security resulted in disaster – just like her risky and extreme attempt to bond with Shelby in the winter woods almost resulted in disaster. Being drawn to taking extreme risks to “fix” her inner demons born of extreme financial and emotional deprivation is Bell’s fatal flaw.

In the final scene, Bell’s black and purple swollen belly suggests pregnancy, but one consummated through acts of violence, not lovemaking, and terminating in toxic blood-poisoning and death, not new life.

In the last moments of the film, Bell watches skateboarders risking severe injury as they try to master a dangerous stunt. Risk vs. the reward of a vision achieved. Finally, one boy sticks a successful landing.

Bell’s life slowly ebbs as we see her in the blizzard, carrying young Shelby on her back, determined to escape the storm and defy the disaster she herself has tempted by her risky misguided attempt to express the love to her daughter that she had been denied by her own mother. Fade to death.

We want to hear from you! If any of our Residence 11 director spotlights entice you to watch the films, please text us your own comments, alternate perspectives, or criticisms (of the films themselves or our treatment of them).

Thoughtful, respectful, positive criticisms (even those expressing passionate disagreement) will be considered for publication. Let’s start an enlightening dialogue!

Start with these questions: Can you sympathize with Bell’s plight and be on her side? Would you hold a man to the same standard?

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