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Nicole Kidman and Colin Farrell have taken over the 70th edition of the biggest film festival in the world.
She has four dramas opening at the French Riviera, he stars alongside her in two.
Kidman's career has had something of a resurgence of late, thanks to the Oscar-nominated Lion in 2016 and her role in HBO series Big Little Lies alongside Reese Witherspoon.
In her films at Cannes, she is reinvented as a feminist lesbian, a punk icon, a cruel headmistress and the wife of a bi-curious surgeon.
Farrell, who has metamorphosed from Hollywood wild child to indie darling, is a surgeon, and a wounded Union soldier.
I hereby declare them King and Queen of the Cannes Film Festival, and here's why.
Kidman and Farrell in Yorgos Lathimos' The Killing Of A Sacred Deer
Kidman dazzled at the French Riviera 25 years ago, starring in Ron Howard's Land Run romantic drama Far And Away.
Back then, she was proving herself an actress to be taken seriously, rather than Tom Cruise's trophy wife.
But through no fault of her own, the actress became fodder for the tabloids, with stories on everything from Scientology gossip to heavily denied cosmetic surgery.
The last time Kidman stepped foot in Cannes was in 2014, for the flop film Grace Of Monaco, and it didn't leave good memories.
Three years later, and she's working with Sofia Coppola, Jane Campion, Yorgos Lanthimos and John Cameron Mitchell - fresh from her much-hailed performance in Big Little Lies and the Oscar nomination for Lion.
So what changed?
For a 49-year-old woman in Hollywood to be reinvented and chosen by filmmakers of this calibre is, unfortunately, something of a rarity.
Happily, though, it is becoming more common.
Kidman as a cruel headmistress in Sofia Coppola's The Beguiled
"That's sort of a confluence of events," she told a Cannes junket, when asked about her four dramas opening at the festival.
"That's not something that I was aware would happen, but at this stage in my life I'm just trying to stay very bold and open and try things and support filmmakers that I believe in."
Credit to Kidman, who decided to return to Campion, the director who gave her one of her best performances to date, in the 1996 drama The Portrait Of A Lady.
"Luckily, we had Jane and Sofia here. Obviously we as women have to support female directors. That's just a given now," Kidman said.
In Sofia Coppola's The Beguiled - a classy adaptation of Thomas P Cullinan's Civil War novel A Painted Devil - Kidman plays a severe headmistress who, along with two other women, accepts to take on a wounded corporal in need of care.
The soldier is played by Farrell - who also plays Kidman's husband in Lanthimos' The Killing Of A Sacred Deer.
"I never met her until before this film," he said. "And then, two months later, I'm giving her a hug on the set of Sacred Deer and saying to her: I'll see you in two weeks in New Orleans.
"We shot this in Cincinnati and, two weeks on, went to New Orleans to work with Sofia. Nicole's a dream to work with. She's deadly, she's such a brilliant actress, but she has a wicked sense of humour."
Farrell as a Union soldier in Sofia Coppola's The Beguiled
Farrell is himself an odd case study of how an actor can spend most of his career typecast, wasted and uncomfortable in someone else's skin.
Granted, that's part of an actor's job, but there is something comforting in watching Farrell playing a fat, shy and sexually insecure character.
For years he was the Irish heartthrob; the silent type, the tough guy, the cop, the cowboy and the sailor.
When I interviewed him at the British Independent Film Awards two years ago, he had just been nominated for his role in Lanthimos' second film, The Lobster.
I asked him about the role, and the possibility of being transformed into a Lobster.
He told me he would prefer a bird of prey, to fly above the rest of us, unnoticed.
This is the essence of what makes Farrell such a tremendous actor: his ability to restrain emotions, hide feelings and, yes, maintain a protruding pot belly.
"The less expressive it is, the more it allows the audience the ability to fill those gaps," Farrell said, when asked about his constrained performance.
"The more they are pulled into those gaps, and lean into some version of their own understanding through whatever their individual perspective is."
Colin Farrel in Yorgos Lanthimos' The Killing Of A Sacred Deer
Hollywood has many flaws, from typecasting male actors to not casting older female stars.
Cannes has its own problems, stuck in a rut of traditionalism and bound by French politics and pretentious, booing journalists.
But this year, something seems to be changing.
TV and streaming have been allowed in (although for how long and in what capacity remains uncertain), the Queen of Cannes is a middle-aged star (opposed to, say, the young and talented Elle Fanning) and the King is a former action hero in touch with his feelings.
Long live all of it.
(SKYNEWS)
