2017 is the year of Nicole Kidman at the Cannes Film Festival, with the Oscar-winning actress starring in not one, not two, not three, but four films premiering at the prestigious French festival. One of those new projects is How To Talk To Girls At Parties, teaser trailers for which were just released on Instagram this Thursday by the cast and crew. Judging by the quick snippets shown in the promos, the upcoming movie will feature Kidman like you've never seen her before.
The film, which is adapted from a 2006 short story by Neil Gaiman, tells the story of two friends who attend a party and try to talk some cute foreign exchange students… only to learn that the students are perhaps a bit more foreign than expected. (Hint: they may or may not be from outer space.)
In one teaser posted by Gaiman himself, a character played by Elle Fanning asks a boy, "What's punk?" In answer, we get a montage of hard partying and loud rock music, culminating in an unhinged Kidman — sporting a very David Bowie-circa-Labyrinth wig — leading a horde of charging punks while screaming, "Rise up, my children!" It's exactly as hilarious as I'm making it sound.
The sight of Kidman gleefully letting her hair down and cutting loose as a character named Queen Boadicea in a bizarro punk rock sci-fi sex dramedy from the director of Hedwig And The Angry Inch is an absolute blast — especially considering she's best known for playing mostly classy and/or composed woman in serious dramas, period pieces, or biopics.
And not only is Kidman starring in more projects than ever — including acclaimed TV shows Big Little Lies and Top Of The Lake in addition to the several films she has premiering this year — but she also appears to be tackling a wider variety of roles, as evidenced by her out-of-the-box performance in the How To Talk To Girls teaser. The fact that this career renaissance is coming at the age of 49 is all the more impressive in an industry that doesn't often seem to appreciate or value the talents of women "of a certain age."
There's plenty else to be excited about in How To Talk To Girls, of course; other teasers posted by Mitchell and Fanning hint at oddball romance, frank sex talk, music, dancing, and of course sexy mutating alien women. Although those of us not fortunate enough to be in attendance at Cannes will have to wait a while longer to see this gonzo movie in theaters, the good news is that it's already been picked up for distribution.
We also have plenty of other Kidman projects coming up to tide us over: there's period drama The Beguiled (also starring her How To Talk To Girls co-star Elle Fanning), in theaters June 23, Season 2 of Top Of The Lake, debuting this fall, and thriller The Killing Of A Sacred Deer, in theaters Nov. 3. Like Queen Boadicea and her army of devoted punk rockers, the actor appears to have the whole world under her spell this year… and I wouldn't have it any other way.
