Nicole Kidman has become the emblem of TV’s bumper crop of pulpy, high-gloss murder mysteries about affluent white women

Los Angeles Times

"Kidman has quickly become the poster girl for this relatively new form of upscale television," says Meredith Blake of her shows Big Little Lies and The Undoing. "By returning to television after a three-decade absence, Kidman reinvigorated her career as an actress and producer," says Blake. "Other A-list stars have followed suit and embraced TV — especially the limited series — as an ideal vehicle for female-centered narratives. Yet the response to The Undoing, focused on its opulence rather than its psychological acuity or cinematic artistry, shows how easily high-end storytelling is confused with TV shows about rich people and their problems filmed in expensive locations." As Blake points out, fans of The Undoing focused on Kidman's character's coats and the real-world value of her home. "This fixation with Kidman’s aesthetic — and how she does or doesn’t transform herself for a role — is not exactly new," says Blake. "Even the earliest profiles of her, written when she began to achieve movie stardom in the late ’80s, inevitably described her 'porcelain' skin and 'fiery' curls...Perhaps because of her statuesque looks, highbrow taste and tendency to land on the cover of Vanity Fair, Kidman is often cast as sophisticated, cosmopolitan characters — English aristocrats, Sorbonne-educated interpreters, Hollywood stars turned actual princesses. The same propensity has carried over into Kidman’s TV work, fueled by the medium’s own quest to amass the urbane cachet of its elder sibling, film."