Babygirl ★★★

Romy Mathis (Nicole Kidman) seems to have the ideal life. She is a powerful CEO of a leading tech company. She has an adoring husband in Jacob (Antonio Banderas) and two daughters, living on a large estate with an in-ground pool. However, there is something out of place. The opening scene finds Romy and Jacob having sex. Kidman is shot in a high-angle close-up, seemingly on the brink of climaxing. Jacob then finishes, Romy rolls off, and the encounter is over but Romy has not orgasmed. Instead, she rushes off to watch porn in another room and finishes herself off. She cannot bring herself to tell Jacob about his continued inability to make her orgasm, instead holding it inside of her and going about her daily existence as an important businesswoman, wife, and mother. That is, until she encounters Samuel (Harris Dickinson).

An intern newly hired at Romy’s company, Samuel catches her eye in the street when he settles down an aggressive dog with a cookie. Though she knows of the power imbalance and age gap that exists, his flirtations with her prove too hard to resist. He is toeing the line from their very first encounter, edging around her defenses and Romy may be shocked and a bit embarrassed, but she loves the attention. There is a thrill underpinning every little transgression, something she cannot resist. Director Halina Reijn’s Babygirl follows this relationship, this torrid love affair that consumes both Romy and Samuel, taking them in directions they never expected, that finds Romy shedding her composed veneer to reveal the sexual being beneath who just wants to be touched in the right way. At first, it manifested in Romy trying new things with her husband, but when he balks and claims that what she wants makes him feel like a “villain”, she turns to the only man asking to give it to her: Samuel.

Babygirl is especially captivating in the build-up to Romy and Samuel’s first sexual encounters. The office flirtations, their first kiss, and the little games that Samuel plays from a distance, drawing Romy in and leaving her craving more. The thrill that builds as she confronts the reality that she could lose everything in her life that she loves if Samuel were to say anything adds to the suspense and the sensuality of their encounters. Cristobal Tapia de Veer’s score is a perfect accompaniment, heightening sexual and sensual tension. There is genuine risk in every moment, a potential for it to spiral out of their control and become something disastrous for both Romy and Samuel. Reijn is less concerned with the actual physical constructions at play than in centering how Romy feels. Close-ups on Kidman as Romy expresses pleasure are key with Samuel in the background, out-of-focus. He is merely the vessel for her sexual expression. The female gaze applied to Samuel’s body as he dances to George Michael’s ‘Father Figure’ and swivels over to her or the affirmations as Romy stands naked before him (after a Basic Instinct inspired scene), trying to shyly cover up while he assures her that she is “beautiful,” provide plenty of emotional and visual pleasure. Babygirl’s sex scenes, for as sexy as they can be, do pull away too early in moments, leaving one wanting more but also lacking the harder, sultrier, and more lurid edge of the erotic thrillers of directors like Adrian Lyne and Paul Verhoeven that Reijn cites as inspirations.

As a Christmas-set erotic thriller, Babygirl stands as a fitting follow-up of sorts to Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut, which also starred Kidman as Alice Harford. In the film, she and her husband Dr. Bill Harford (Tom Cruise) get into an argument. The crux of the argument is Alice having seen Bill at a party talking to two women and, upon prodding, it is revealed that the only reason Bill did not have sex with them is because he feared Alice finding out. In one of the more iconic parts of the film, the pair argue back-and-forth and have the following exchange:

Alice Harford: Millions of years of evolution, right? Right? Men have to stick it in every place they can, but for women… women it is just about security and commitment and whatever the fuck else!

Dr. Bill Harford: A little oversimplified, Alice, but yes, something like that.

Alice Harford: If you men only knew…

Alice then recounts her own near-affair with a sailor, a fantasy she found herself willing to indulge in even if it meant losing her husband and their daughter. She has fantasies, desires, and a sexual agency that Bill has never fathomed, having always positioned women in a place of submission to the sexual desires of men. Eyes Wide Shut follows Bill and his night of sexual fantasy, orgies, and cult terror, while Alice is largely left at home. Babygirl places Romy in the ascendancy, in charge of her fantasies and, this time, the one who is taken on a journey of self-discovery and sexual liberation. She is the one risking her family and facing a forbidden world that could threaten her family. As Bill was blackmailed into silence by the cult he saw, Samuel keeps popping up at Romy’s family events as an uninvited guest or as a date of a guest. The Christmas season of togetherness and family is undercut as a false reality, a fantastical deception, trying to distract from the fractures and cracks into the traditional facade of upper-class life. There is a disconnect in the Harford’s as there is one between Romy and Jacob with Samuel picking at this crack and offering a respite to indulge in sexual fantasies that Romy never dreamed possible but, as with Eyes Wide Shut, these dreams eventually seep into her reality and leave her world forever altered, no matter how hard she tries to keep them separate.

Babygirl has a fantastic cast. Kidman is exceptional, capturing so much of the longing and craving for Samuel that pervades her thinking early on, as well as the emotional war going on within her once the affair starts. Torn between knowing what she knows is right and what she wants to do, all while feeling pleasure she never knew was possible with another person makes this a fascinating character, one that Kidman lends great humanity and empathy. She and Dickinson have fantastic chemistry, both in their flirtations and in the bedroom. The two emphasize the mutual ecstasy their characters feel, the physical hold that it takes on them and the avenue it offers for a new kind of feeling, one they can never find in true romantic relationships. Dickinson’s delivery of genuinely out-of-pocket lines is often hysterical with this young man feeling his way around social mores and what he can convince Romy to do, having a natural awkwardness to some of the encounters but also a brash, bold, and charismatic vibe that is undeniably appealing. Antonio Banderas impresses as Romy’s husband, especially once the affair comes to light. His own tepidness early on is replaced with deep insecurity in his own marriage and his own prowess as a man, which Banderas captures in both the internal struggle and in the rage he expresses.

Babygirl is a lot of fun. Director Halina Reijn’s erotic thriller is less after titillation than it is after examining a woman’s sexual awakening and the pleasure she and her lover can conjure up for one another when fully in sync. It is a film of provocation and playfulness, though lacking some of the lurid edge that could really make its sex scenes into the steamy encounters of its influences. With Nicole Kidman and Harris Dickinson’s dynamic chemistry and embrace of the film’s chaotic energy, Babygirl is a hard-to-resist cinematic pleasure.