Another Wacky Nicole Kidman Performance? Sign Us Up!
The actor is back as Masha in Nine Perfect Strangers Season 2 and just as expected, she's fabulous in it!
At a time when everything she does inevitably turns to movie magic, it’s quite a surprise when a Nicole Kidman show goes under the radar. Especially since Nine Perfect Strangers deserves more eyeballs than it’s been getting, especially now that show is back with Season 2.
A darker, more twisted cousin of The White Lotus, Nine Perfect Strangers is also about a group of people, nine in this case, checking into a wellness resort, but that’s where the similarities end. Kidman plays the resort’s director, an eerily affable Russian woman, Masha Dmitrichenko, who is drugging the guests to help them unpack their issues and attain clarity. If she sounds absolutely cuckoo, that’s because she definitely is that person!
Every time someone asks me about an underrated show that absolutely deserves to be talked about, Nine Perfect Strangers is my pitch. It’s a thriller, dark comedy and a great insight into human flaws and emotions, all rolled into one. And unlike The White Lotus (which totally deserves all the hype and so much more), it’s a slow burn, never changing mood. It’s not an ‘exciting’ watch – the characters (barring Masha) aren’t supposed to stand out more than necessary and there’s no big murder plot waiting to be unfolded either.
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It’s essentially a Nicole Kidman show, and she takes great pleasure and playing an unhinged character and making a meal out of it.
Spoiler alert
In the first season’s finale, during all that chaos with the guests, Masha drives off from the resort with her daughter, in an ending that was meant to keep you guessing about her daughter’s existence. The show was originally meant to be a limited series, and we were never explicitly told if her daughter was alive or just a figment of Masha’s imagination thanks to the psychoactive drugs she’d been consuming!
Now that the series has been renewed as an anthology, taking Masha to a different property in a totally different location (somewhere in Germany), she’s shown as running away from a million lawsuits, as she’s joined hands with an about-to-be-broke friend to start another ‘wellness resort’ using her infamous drugs. The said daughter is still haunting her – yes, she’s been dead, and Masha was always imagining her – and Masha is resolute in her efforts to find emotional clarity while also providing an ‘emotional cleanse’ to a new set of guests.
And the new guests obviously have no clue what they’re in for!
There’s Annie Murphy who’s come with her mother to repair their broken relationship. Her mother, Christine Baranski (my favourite character this season, already!), has brought along a random toy-boy (Aras Aydin) though, much to her chagrin. Henry Golding plays the son of a wealthy businessmen who likes to pass off as anything but that. His dad’s (Mark Strong) also a guest, someone Masha has her eyes on already. Then there’s Murray Bartlett playing Brian who is definitely holding in a lot of emotions. King Princess and Maisie Richardson-Sellers play a lesbian couple, both musicians, with a fast falling apart relationship. Dolly de Leon stars as the final guest, a former nun no less.
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To say that there are a bunch of rather interesting characters would be an understatement. But that’s the thing about Nine Perfect Strangers – it's focal point continues to be Masha, and Kidman is in fine form, like she always it.
Her Russian accent might be coming and going but her face never loses focus. There’s a new wig this season too, which might be a sign that Masha is only going to get more unhinged – now that’s what makes for great TV!
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, no body is having more fun with their craft quite like Nicole Kidman. Show after show, movie after movie, she’s coming up with characters that are instantly watchable, and her performances have been top notch in all of them.
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Yes, she’s always been a fine actor but the kind of experimentation she’s doing, few others her stature seem to be up to.
Nine Perfect Strangers is worth watching just for Masha alone. Adding 9 other incredible actors to the ensemble is the icing on the cake, and you’ll be thankful for it. But you won’t forget even for a second that the cake as it is, is worth every bite anyway!