Babygirl review: A film that’s liable to get people talking, arguing and flirting
Nicole Kidman offers another brave, bold turn in this erotic thriller from Bodies Bodies Bodies director Halina Reijn.
Nicole Kidman has, from time to time, explored the darker side of sexuality and desire. Famously, co-starring in Stanley Kubrick’s sexual odyssey Eyes Wide Shut with her ex-husband Tom Cruise, Kidman later dived into steamy terrain with Lee Daniels’ The Paperboy, with that infamous scene as she pees on a jellyfish sting on Zac Efron’s leg. Now she’s back with Babygirl, a film that dips into the submissive fantasies of a high-powered CEO who gets entangled with a younger male intern.
Premiering in competition at this year’s Venice Film Festival, Babygirl starts with the camera looking down on Kidman’s character Romy in bed, straddling her husband Jacob (Antonio Banderas). But no sooner has their ecstasy subsided before she’s off to find some quality ‘me time’ alone in a room, masturbating to some graphic pornography which depicts a young woman dominated by an older man. "These are scary times," her husband later comments to their two young daughters; they surely are.
Romy gets a chance to realise her fantasies when a new group of interns arrive at her company, Tensile, an Amazon-like automated delivery service. Among them is Samuel (British actor Harris Dickinson), who immediately catches her eye with his confidence. Ambitious, he senses something in her, which comes out at a mentorship meeting. “I think you like to be told what to do,” he says, provocatively, before kissing her in the room.
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While Rory tries to resist, suggesting they don’t have a second meeting, she’s almost helpless as her inner submissive is clamouring to get out. In one intriguing scene, with Rory surrounded by colleagues in a bar, Samuel orders her a glass of milk. Surprised, she nonetheless drinks it. “Good girl,” he whispers, a titillating act of domination. Later, we see her in a hotel room, on all fours or standing in the corner or forced to clear up a broken vessel. Soon, Samuel is calling his boss “Babygirl”. Their safe word is “Jacob”, a cheeky nod to her husband.
Had Babygirl been made by a man, there rightly would have been outrage that this is something exploitative. But the film’s female writer-director, Dutch-born former actress Halina Reijn, who previously made the 2022 Gen Z murder yarn Bodies Bodies Bodies, refocuses the story away from the acts of humiliation in the second half. Instead, we get an intriguing look into female psychology, workplace hierarchies and male-female power-play.
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“I’m not normal. I’m not other women,” cries Romy, and partly you’re left wishing Babygirl had gone further in its exploration of psychological extremes. But it’s a slick, professional piece of work, walking a fine line between its commercial and arthouse tendencies. Kidman’s cohort Dickinson (the Himbo male model in Cannes winner Triangle of Sadness) is great as a lover who swings between obsession and control; the film sways towards Fatal Attraction territory at times but wisely resists lurching into full-on thriller territory.
The music choices further enhance the story, especially INXS’ Never Tear Us Apart and George Michael’s sultry tune Father Figure, a song that slightly plays on the ‘Daddy’ issues that Romy latently has.
Elsewhere, Banderas is slightly short-changed with a low-key role, but he comes into his own in the final act and does get one of the best lines in the film: “Female masochism is nothing but a male fantasy.” Is it? One wonders what Lars Von Trier, who made his two-part Nymphomaniac about a woman’s sadomasochistic fantasies, would make of this.
Throughout, Reijn directs stylishly, with one club scene, as Romy goes searching for Samuel while thumping techno beats envelop her, particularly standing out.
Importantly, Kidman herself offers another brave, bold turn, appropriate for a film that’s liable to get people talking, arguing, and flirting.
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