Nicole Kidman was honored by the American Film Institute with the Lifetime Achievement Award this weekend and we’ll get to that in a minute. As expected, since Nicole is such an acclaimed artist, there were a lot of celebrities there to honour her, including Zac Efron. And the reason I’m focusing on Zac is because they’re coming out with another movie together and, well, I don’t think I want it. 

 

Because I am one of the few people who didn’t want it the first time. Have you seen The Paperboy? You remember that scene? 

 

Like I said, I didn’t want it then and I don’t want it now. But we’re about to get it because the movie, A Family Affair, comes out this summer on Netflix and PEOPLE just posted a first look today: 

 

As noted in the caption, A Family Affair is about Joey King whose mother, played by Nicole, falls in love with her boss, a famous actor, played by Zac Efron. 

And it’s not like this wouldn’t ordinarily be my jam. If you’ve been visiting this site over the last few months, you’re probably aware of the boner I have for The Idea of You, with Anne Hathaway playing a single mother in a relationship with a boyband popstar played by Nicholas Galatzine when she meets him while taking her daughter to Coachella. That movie comes out this week, and it is AMAZING, I love it so much and I can’t wait for all of you to see it so that we can squeal about it together. 

 

My point is that I’m predisposed to this kind of story – and I still don’t want it, at least not yet, in the form of Nicole and Zac. Individually they’re great. Together though? Not feeling it, although who are we kidding, of course I’m going to watch it and, sure, I will be open to being convinced otherwise. 

Back to The Idea of You, though, and the fact that these movies are coming out within weeks of each other, and how seemingly, on the surface, there are certain similarities… 

On the one hand, this is a good thing, that we have more than one rom-com on the market involving women who are not 25 years old called Kate (please don’t let her character be called Kate, no disrespect to any of you out there called Kate but even you have to admit, your name is overused in movies!). More rom-coms, period, but also a wider range of rom-coms is required; these two are about more mature white ladies, yes, and I’m not saying that completely checks the box of inclusion but it’s still better than what we have mostly gotten in the past which is young white women owning the business of falling in love. And that’s just simply too narrow. 

 

On the other hand, well, it does seem kinda close, like the subject matter. And, let me repeat, The Idea of You is SO good that A Family Affair will have a very recent standard of comparison. 

But then, on the other other hand, or to go back to the first hand, big blow ‘em up action movies come out a couple of months apart all the time and it’s all car chases and explosions and punch punch kick jump boom boom guns shoot, same same, so why can’t we have two rom-coms back to back with woman who’s older than the man? 

Wait, why am I defending this movie when, again, I already said at the start of this post that I didn’t want it?! 

Let’s get back to Nicole at the AFI gala last night. Keith Urban, their two daughters, and her niece were with her, and that’s one of the major headlines since we don’t see their kids all that often. But my major headline is this look. Because holy sh-t she is wearing the sh-t out of this gold dress and it’s the perfect choice on a night where Hollywood’s royalty has gathered to toast her.

 

And the girl made an entrance!

Nicole is wearing Balenciaga, styled by Jason Bolden, and I want to spend time on this because I wrote about this last month when The Hollywood Reporter released its annual Power Stylists issue. Nicole + Jason is still a relatively new relationship, they met on a shoot and just sparked. Clearly that spark is getting hotter because this event was a huge moment for her and she trusted him to conceive of the perfect look. And it really IS perfect, she looks unreal. 

 

This is significant because the industry comp for an actor like Nicole would be, for example, Cate Blanchett, Julia Roberts, Gwyneth Paltrow, Julianne Moore, Jessica Chastain – all are styled by white women, and white women have and still to a certain extend dominate this industry. In fact three of the women on that list are styled by the same person. Both Jason and Law Roach have called out the gatekeeping in the industry and how Black stylists simply don’t get the same opportunities (and therefore rates!) even when their work inspires so much cultural excitement. 

Nicole has a press tour coming up for A Family Affair. We’re going to see a lot more of Jason’s work in the weeks to come. And if this golden look is any indication, get ready for some major moments – and this is Nicole Kidman, by her standards, that’s saying something. 

Really curious what you think though of Nicole and Zac so I’m doing another post about it at The Squawk. Head over and share your thoughts! (app link here)