Film Review: Babygirl

Babygirl
Director: Halina Reijn
2AM, Man Up Films
In Theaters: 12.25

I’m going to take a slight risk here and perhaps shatter the image that so many of my friends and readers have of me as a smoldering volcano of virile manhood. I’m not a widely acknowledged expert on the subject of female sexuality, and as such, I couldn’t quite relate to Babygirl, but I’m pretty sure that’s a big part of the point of it.

The film follows Romy Mathis (Nicole Kidman, The Hours), a successful career woman who has seemingly achieved everything: she’s the CEO of a Manhattan robotics company, she’s happily married to a loving husband, Jacob (Antonio Banderas, Evita, The Mask of Zorro), and has two teenage daughters, Isabel (Esther McGregor, Bleeding Love, The Room Next Door) and Nora (Vaughan Reilly, The Hunger Games:The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes). There’s an area of Romy’s life that has always been lacking, however: she’s never felt satisfied sexually or been able to explore her need to be submissively dominated, as Jacob refuses to indulge in such sexual behavior. Enter Samuel (Harris Dickinson, Triangle of Sadness, Where The Crawdads Sing), a perceptive young intern who follows a vibe he’s sensing from Romy and starts subtly challenging her boundaries. It’s not long before the electricity between them ignites into a torrid secret relationship, as the controlling Samuel nicknames her “Babygirl” — a name he uses only when she’s met his approval — and Romy, at last, unbridles her long suppressed desires. 

It would be very easy to dismiss Babygirl as another tawdry affair movie, and frankly, if it had been made by a man, it very likely would be. But writer-director Halina Reijn (Bodies Bodies Bodies) is going for something deeper. This is a sex-positive feminist look at the way society teaches women to approach their “role” in the act of sex, and it’s a story of self discovery. Similar themes were explored in the 2022 Sundance hit Good Luck To You, Leo Grande, which was also directed by a woman, and unless you’re our next Vice President, it’s hard to argue that female filmmakers being supported in telling such stories that lead to open discussion is overdue. It’s also a provocative and intriguing choice to explore more complex and taboo sexual dynamics in a non-judgemental, thoughtful way that just possibly may not have been definitively captured in Fifty Shades of Grey. It may not be comfortable for everyone — it certainly wasn’t for me — and yet, that doesn’t mean it should be dismissed.

Kidman’s fearless performance is spellbinding and impossible to look away from as it is often awkward to watch, and it may nab her a second Oscar. Dickinson, a magnetic and interesting young actor, is quite a presence here, definitely commanding the screen and making his character far more believable than I expected him to be. I must admit that I found myself tangentially distracted by some of the casting: for example, the choice to have Ewan McGregor’s daughter play Kidman’s daughter made my mind jump frequently jump to Moulin Rouge! Whenever I considered that Kidman spent 11 years married to Tom Cruise, I found it easy to buy that submission was her thing, and also that she’d never been properly satisfied, but where the movie lost me was in the casting of Banderas as Jacob. I can remember when 80% of the women and at least 20% of the men I hung out with were instantly brought to orgasm simply by his accent, much less by sharing a bed with him for decades, but I digress. The ensemble is stellar all around, but there’s no question that it’s Kidman’s show all the way through.

Babygirl may fall more into the category of a movie I admired than one I thoroughly enjoyed, yet there’s no denying that it provoked a response, a lot of thinking and some fascinating conversations I’ll eventually have as soon as I find someone I’m not terrified to talk about it with. It’s a bold and penetrating price of art (I regretted the choice of that word even before I typed it), and one of the most daring films I’ve seen in some time. –Patrick Gibbs 

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