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Nicole Kidman: "Being the Ricardos"

 "Being the Ricardos" is a shaky movie, with a weak script, and Nicole Kidman's performance is not one of her best.


Nevertheless, I love Ms. Kidman, and I'm ready for an Oscar victory.

One thing I appreciate about Kidman is her tales of her childhood; she was too pale to "sun" on the Australian beach, so she would stay in and read Dostoyevsky and Ibsen. She understood that *reading* Ibsen might be her one and only chance to "play Nora" -- and she was OK with that. Reading Chekhov, she could "play" Nina or Masha in her head -- and she was OK with that, too.

People complain that Kidman's first Oscar win was for a mediocre film, "The Hours," deemed, by Manohla Dargis, "a polite yawn of a movie." People also feel that Kidman didn't need the ridiculous prosthetic nose; Virginia Woolf was once considered a beauty, and the Hollywood makeup department neglected to do some important homework.

Kidman is the one and only artist to have four Golden Globes from four separate decades: We're talking about "To Die For," "Moulin Rouge," "Big Little Lies," and "Being the Ricardos." Move over, Meryl. (Additionally, Kidman has a Globe for "The Hours.")

And Kidman credits "Rabbit Hole" with reviving her career; she says, "I wasn't getting great roles, and then I heard about this Cynthia Nixon play, and I chose to take matters into my own hands."

I admire Kidman's tenacity, and I'm hopeful for her this season; her fifth Oscar nomination should be made public, maybe ten or twenty minutes from now.
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