The Portrait of a Lady

'The Portrait of a Lady' (1996)

Jane Campion's masterpiece stars a Kidman who is all eyes, her fiercely inquisitive, laser-blue gaze hot to take in everything the world has to offer. At the start, Kidman's heart-shaped, fly-away red hair signals an electrified imagination, ... morefree and open to experience. Courageously, she resists being pinned down by marriage, even when courted by fabulously wealthy or sexy or simpatico suitors. A 19th-century Athena who fancies that her innocence, her very virginity, armors her against everything that might trip her up, Isabel Archer is brought down by a Beast (John Malkovich) who sexually hypnotizes her. Her nemesis is an effete collector of objets d'art and a corrupt money-grubber who pimps out daughter, wife and longtime lover. Under his baleful tyranny, the shining mirror of Isabel's face turns opaque, hardens into a porcelain oval, while her hair is caught up in smooth, heavy coils, its dark convolutions suggesting the hellish subterfuges of her married life. "Portrait" is an actress's dream (or nightmare): Isabel Archer begins as a woman-in-motion who believes she has time and leave to play out her best roles, safe from typecasting. Drained of color and mobility by a husband who's both vampire and voyeur, desperate Isabel is finally trapped in a freeze-frame, a butterfly pinned for the pleasure of our eyes.

(Image: Everett Collection)