Nicole Kidman is in two movies this fall where you may struggle to recognize her. In one, she’s an underwater queen, and in the other she’s a weary detective bruised by memories of a violent past.

In that latter movie, Destroyer, Kidman plays a LAPD detective who looks like she’s about to collapse at any moment. Her skin is aged and blotchy, there’s dark circles under her eyes, and her odd pixie cut looks like she walked into a Supercuts and absentmindedly pointed to a photo on the wall and said “Sure, whatever. That.” In the new film from director Karyn Kusama (The Invitation, Jennifer’s Body), Kidman’s Erin Bell stumbles on a crime scene that triggers memories of an undercover job from her past.  Here’s the full synopsis:

Destroyer follows the moral and existential odyssey of LAPD detective Erin Bell who, as a young cop, was placed undercover with a gang in the California desert with tragic results. When the leader of that gang re-emerges many years later, she must work her way back through the remaining members and into her own history with them to finally reckon with the demons that destroyed her past.

I saw Destroyer back at TIFF and, sadly, left it feeling pretty disappointed. That said, Kidman gives one hell of a ferocious performance. It’s worth seeing alone for a scene where Kidman charges into a bank with a machine gun (teased in the trailer above) and a couple others where she goes totally apes–t on a dude. But hey, maybe the movie will work better for you than it did for me. Destroyer hits theaters on December 25.

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