If you, like me, devoured Leïla Slimani’s taut and horrifying thriller, Lullaby – the story of a Parisian nanny who murders the two children she is hired to care for – in a single, sweat-drenched sitting, we have news: a brand new adaptation is on its way from HBO and Nicole Kidman looks set to play the dangerous and beguiling figure at its centre.
In an exclusive report published on 27 January, Deadline revealed that the Oscar winner will be returning to the prestigious network – the home of her two biggest small screen hits, Big Little Lies and The Undoing – for a limited series based on the international bestseller, which will be created by Maya Erskine. The latter, the co-creator and star of the critically-acclaimed Pen15 who will soon appear opposite Donald Glover in the Mr and Mrs Smith reboot, will pen the show and take on a leading role alongside Kidman. Both actors will also be executive producers on the project. The log line for the series, which will be titled The Perfect Nanny (the novel’s US title), simply reads: “A seemingly perfect nanny goes to work for a couple with two young children, but her helpful personality eventually deteriorates into something sinister.”
Although it’s not yet clear who will play which part, it seems likely that Kidman will embody the older Louise, the fastidious caregiver who suddenly turns violent, while the 35-year-old Erskine will be a version of Myriam, the lawyer who employs Louise to look after her young daughter and baby son so that she can reenter the workforce. As Erskine is Japanese American, unlike the Myriam of Slimani’s novel, who is French Moroccan, it’s probable that the show’s plot will differ from the book’s in other significant ways (perhaps also in terms of its Parisian setting), though the central themes of maternal guilt, racial tensions and class divisions should remain in place.
For Kidman, it’s just one of a number of buzzy upcoming releases she’s currently attached to. Before we see her in Louise’s eerily prim Peter Pan collar dresses, look out for her as a grieving mother in Lulu Wang’s Expats; a CIA operative in Taylor Sheridan’s Lioness; and a Hitchcockian scorned woman in Mimi Cave’s Holland, Michigan.
