Destroyer (2019) - layered heist film with noir elements

 

SPOILERS!!! Only read after watching.

Nicole Kidman is brilliant.  Again.  And does that thing people always wow about, where a beautiful actress allows herself to do a part where she’s very real, old and haggard looking.  I thought the most amazing bit of the transformation was still the acting: her walk – it was as though everything hurt, all the time.  This pained arthritic walk.  She's Erin Bell, aging detective, haunted by a case involving a heist long past that she would give anything to redo and fix her part in.

Everyone was good in this  - Sebastian Stan as the other undercover cop, Chris, who loved Erin; Toby Kebbell as Silas, perceptive and ruthless; Zach Villa as Arturo, also haunted by the heist and trying to atone; Bradley Whitford as the horribly supercilious DiFranco; and Jade Pettyjohn as Shelby, Erin's daughter, in particular.  

It was a very sad story of a heist that goes wrong with an undercover pair of cops.  Due to Kidman’s character’s understandable greed.  Two people die.  She could have stopped the heist from happening by reporting it, but she doesn't, as she wants in. She is haunted by it, and the film cleverly does a loop where you think the beginning was the beginning and the events spin from there; but actually the beginning was the end – she kills Silas and then dies alone in her car, having sort of apologised to her daughter and in her mind having squared the circle a little, for what happened in bungled heist and for wrecking her own daughter’s childhood by being unable to be a reliable mother - she hadn't had one herself either. 

She’s a brilliant example of the fucked up detective trope, done really well.  This was a character led film - more of a psychological portrait than a heist film or simple thriller, and SO sad at the end.  Sitting dying in her car, she sees a memory: her walking off, with her daughter as a child on her back, through the snow, walking determinedly…for no reason they were there in this messed up lost situation out in the freezing winter, but what she remembers is being there, walking forward – protecting her child.  It was like she tried to go back and walk out of her life and take daughter Shelby with her. But of course, there is no squaring the circle, she did bad things that can't be undone.  

Its all very dark, and just gets darker as you go along, a feeling of inevitability about her actions.  The whole thing is scripted beautifully by Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi (they've paired on several other films as writers, preferring to always write together; but I didn't like any of them as well as I liked this; this was understated loveliness, in scriptwriting terms).

I think the film is called Destroyer because that’s what she thinks she is.  She thinks it’s all her fault.  There are hints of a neglected and deprived childhood, explaining her ‘hungriness’, but they are explanation, not reason.  She doesn’t forgive herself for any of it - witness her never using the money.  She also doesn't forgive Silas, for accurately seeing that part of her, back in the past, as well as shooting Chris - who belatedly tried to stop the heist, as Erin and he had agreed...While Erin, when it came to it, sat by and did nothing, resulting in his death.  It’s not just about what Silas did at the heist; it’s about what he saw of herself that she can’t bear: "I know what you are". She kills Silas, then dies herself.  It’s all a bit Shakespearean tragedy. 

Great to see it directed by a woman, Karyn Kusama (known mostly for Jennifer's Body [2009]) - incidentally married to one of the scriptwriters, Phil Hay. Well made and very watchable - a different take on the heist genre. Almost noir, in the sense that when you think about it, Erin Bell is a femme fatale - just no longer a beautiful one.

Strongly recommended if you have a spare two hours and like character portraits with depth.

 

 The memory of when younger, walking with Shelby through the snow storm (image copyright - Ascot Elite)