One has to worry for [Nicole Kidman]. She seems to be bolting pell- mell along the edge of the same precipice favoured by Princess Diana in the years before her death, that including a great deal of hectic exhibitionism. Like Diana, Kidman is everywhere, all the time, on every cover, in every entertainment news special, keening for attention. That little voice, that little face, that uncertain talent married to a ferocious ambition is outshone only by the $100- million she has made in the 10 years of her marriage. One hundred million dollars "earned" before you are 30, with more to come in a luscious divorce settlement. This is social history in the making. Has there been heretofore any young woman so privileged, so saddled with property, children and a famous mate, and now so free, with such access? Who are her advisers? What are her parents thinking? Does she think? Does she have to be so in our face? And why on Earth does she keep taking off all her clothes?

More of this is what, no doubt, Kidman has planned. Not for her the dedication to an art, the slow and careful development of talent and intelligence applied to text, like Cate Blanchett or Meryl Streep. No sir, she wants to rub our faces in her superiority. Why even bother to give us good honest work, since, as loutish middle- class punters, we go to the cinema to catch a glimpse of the vacant divine. As embodied by her. Her marriage did no service to what skill she has; it gave her the model of furious ambition and effort applied to the pursuit of fame. And the skills to disclaim any responsibility for her immature and destructive political philosophy. At least he, in his sweating, efforting agony, only wishes to entertain. May both Cruise and Kidman fade to deserved obscurity. Time will take care of that iconic body. One can only hope that venal vacuity is not the best her generation of women has to offer.

(Copyright National Post 2001)

One has to worry for Nicole Kidman. She seems to be bolting pell- mell along the edge of the same precipice favoured by Princess Diana in the years before her death, that including a great deal of hectic exhibitionism. Like Diana, Kidman is everywhere, all the time, on every cover, in every entertainment news special, keening for attention. That little voice, that little face, that uncertain talent married to a ferocious ambition is outshone only by the $100- million she has made in the 10 years of her marriage. One hundred million dollars "earned" before you are 30, with more to come in a luscious divorce settlement. This is social history in the making. Has there been heretofore any young woman so privileged, so saddled with property, children and a famous mate, and now so free, with such access? Who are her advisers? What are her parents thinking? Does she think? Does she have to be so in our face? And why on Earth does she keep taking off all her clothes?

Nicole Kidman's body is in fact becoming a post-modern holy object. On display nearly all the time, it is the body of the ideal post-millennial gal. Very tall, with an unbelievable abundance of long curly red hair, a perfect little doll face, with lips so defined they have not (this is truly astonishing) seen much collagen. She is very thin, but not cadaverous, and toned, even athletic, definitely boy-like. And unlike every other actress who negotiates every square inch of exposure, she is completely willing to show it to us. In a chilly, sorry you can't ever have this, kind of way.

Which brings me to the execrable Moulin Rouge, a film that made me truly angry. Pinned almost entirely on that iconic body, the film is an insult from beginning to end. A destructive political philosophy, masquerading as post-modern pastiche, under the guise of mass-market entertainment, it is sold to us as soft porn. Baz Lurhman doesn't even bother to hide his contempt while he tells us the thinnest of stories, in the most mocking of ways: a dancer/ whore, seemingly incapable of lurve, who falls in lurve with a penniless author, but who is promised to a capitalist/Duke who the bohemian tribe that inhabits the Moulin Rouge needs to finance another horrible performance.

The bohemian tribe thinks the Duke and the grand bourgeoisie who come to watch and have sex with the dancers of the Moulin Rouge are pathetic. They mock them, while they crave their money, which in a better, more bohemian world, would be theirs. Baz Lurhman and the bohemian tribe who made this movie aim to show us our foolishness, our lust, our consumption. They make fun of our modesty, our biases, our faith, our favouritism for beauty, a decent plot, reasonable writing and even our need to watch one scene without enormous pain to our peripheral eye muscles. We who slog away in the real world are insensitive louts who for some pathetic reason say we crave quality, while lusting after a real life, which is that life lived by bohemia: jolly, promiscuous, awash in alcohol, subject to spontaneous eruptions of "creativity."

Added to Eyes Wide Shut, The Portrait of a Lady and Blue Room, we can see who Nicole Kidman is and what she thinks of us. Eyes Wide Shut: an innocent couple corrupted and almost destroyed by an evil commercial elite. The Portrait of a Lady: an innocent corrupted and destroyed by an evil corrupt aesthete. Blue Room: 16 ways innocent sexuality is corrupted by commerce and creaky disgusting age. One film after play after film that pander to a bohemian elite who thinks every intra-personal brutality is OK, so long as you're not repressed about sex. To Die For: raw, naked ambition that will kill to get ahead. Her only honest film and her best.

Why should we worry? Because this is an actress with a great deal of power. She is admired by millions of young women, her every move and spoken thought pondered and copied, her persona modelled, her wishes, attitudes and dress-sense taken on for their own. She has the kind of delicious cultural power where one can say, well, I'm just an actress. I'm the servant of the artist: the director, the writer, the idea, the vision. Plus, guess what, I'm pathetic. My husband is demanding a divorce, and I don't know why. I had a miscarriage. Sob, a faint tear wiped away.

I don't think so. Actresses should be held accountable, too. Kidman's energy may have been hijacked by auteurs savvy about exploiting one-half of one of the most famous marriages of the '90s, but at the age of 32, no amount of admiration, flattery and indulgence can erase the fact that with every movie an avid empty soul is put on ever greater display. The perfect post-modern actress, capable of pastiche, winking and nodding in complicity as she sells her youth to the capitalist fools who will pay her very high bills.

More of this is what, no doubt, Kidman has planned. Not for her the dedication to an art, the slow and careful development of talent and intelligence applied to text, like Cate Blanchett or Meryl Streep. No sir, she wants to rub our faces in her superiority. Why even bother to give us good honest work, since, as loutish middle- class punters, we go to the cinema to catch a glimpse of the vacant divine. As embodied by her. Her marriage did no service to what skill she has; it gave her the model of furious ambition and effort applied to the pursuit of fame. And the skills to disclaim any responsibility for her immature and destructive political philosophy. At least he, in his sweating, efforting agony, only wishes to entertain. May both Cruise and Kidman fade to deserved obscurity. Time will take care of that iconic body. One can only hope that venal vacuity is not the best her generation of women has to offer.