A24’s Babygirl, the first truly erotic drama in some time, features a brave performance by Nicole Kidman in a change-of-pace role.
PLOT: A high-powered executive (Nicole Kidman) risks her family and career when she begins an affair with a much younger intern (Harris Dickinson).
REVIEW: You’ve got to hand it to director Halina Reijn – she’s not afraid to be controversial. Her last movie, Bodies Bodies Bodies, was a huge surprise, with it being positioned as a slasher movie but ending up as something of a hilarious prank played on horror fans. This one, Babygirl, tackles issues of consent, grooming, and coercion head-on but dares to allow the audience to make up their own mind about what’s appropriate or not.
It offers Nicole Kidman a very controversial part, with her exec, Romy (Nicole Kidman), seemingly having it all. She runs a wildly profitable company with a loving husband (Antonio Banderas) and a supportive family. Yet, right from the first scene, where we see her in bed with her husband, we note that something’s missing. Romy is no longer sexually satisfied with her husband, who’s too tender and loving for her taste. After making love to him, she sneaks away to watch bondage porn and seems to have appetites that she’s afraid to vocalize, such as the desire to be dominated.
Her world is turned upside down when a brash intern, Harris Dickinson’s Samuel, enters the scene. He seems to have her number right from the get-go, challenging her in a way that borders on disrespect but excites her. They start a BDSM-flavored affair, with Romy especially excited by the fact that with one phone call, Samuel could destroy her career. After all, she is a boss who has an affair with one of her employees and one at the very bottom of the company’s ladder.
Reijn doesn’t ask us to condone the relationship, but the notion of who is exploiting who is left open for the audience to decide. It’s a brave role for Kidman, who does things here many other actresses of her stature wouldn’t dare. In an era where movie makers seem reluctant at all to put sex on the screen, Babygirl is different in that it’s totally built around a sexual relationship many would deem inappropriate.
Kidman has good chemistry with Harris Dickinson, who continues to impress following a solid role in last year’s The Iron Claw. At times, he seems to channel Mickey Rourke in 9 1/2 Weeks, with his push and pull irresistible to Romy, even if he’s constantly violating her boundaries, such as visiting her home and family.
As the scorned husband, Antonio Banderas is shown to be incredibly sympathetic, with him loving and supportive – it’s just that’s not what she wants anymore. As Reijn allows us to observe Jacob and Romy’s affair, she also doesn’t give us an easy out by making the husband objectionable. If anything, he’s shown to be the ideal husband. There’s just an itch Romy has that he’s unable to scratch.
Like Bodies Bodies Bodies, Babygirl is stylish. She reteams with her usual cinematographer, Jasper Wolf. She includes a propulsive score by Juan Cristóbal Tapia de Veer, composer of HBO’s The White Lotus (to which this shares some thematic similarities). Technically, the film is pretty impeccable, although at close to two hours, the pace starts to drag in the last act. The film’s ending is somewhat anti-climactic, although perhaps leaving it so open was the intent all along.
While Babygirl might be too provocative to work as an awards play for A24, the company’s notoriety, and the premise will no doubt make it a hotly debated film once it hits theaters later this fall. It’s controversial, but it’s also one of the sexier films to come along in recent memory. Kidman deserves major praise for her consistent refusal to play it safe as an actress.
