Babygirl
New Yorker Romy Mathis (Nicole Kidman) would seem to have it all as the stunning CEO of Tensile, an automated sortation system, sharing two lovely daughters with her handsome husband, theater director Jacob (Antonio Banderas). But she has a secret - she must leave her marital bed after sex in order to orgasm by masturbating to porn. Her perfect-from-the-outside life will be thrown into turmoil when new company intern Samuel (Harris Dickinson) aggressively courts her attention, then unleashes her hidden desires by coaxing her into giving up control as his "Babygirl."
Laura's Review: B+
Writer/director Halina Reijn ("Bodies Bodies Bodies") upends provocative 90's erotic thrillers with a feminist take on how societal gender mores inhibit intimacy. Nicole Kidman illustrates how Romy's own self image fights against her darker sexual desires, allowing Harris Dickinson's challenges to her status quo to open pleasurable floodgates. Power games abound as Reijn plays with such taboo subjects as sexual harassment and adultery, all in the name of self discovery and liberation.
Romy, striking in her elegant apparel and artfully messy coifs, first notices Sam on the street outside her office when he reins in a potentially dangerous situation quieting an unruly, unleashed dog. The woman we see sweep into the office is in control, dashing off orders to her assistant Esme (Sophie Wilde, "Talk to Me") before delivering her latest commercial pitch perfectly poised during a video shoot. She'll notice the young man she saw before being led about the office with the latest interns, briefly entering her office for Esme to make quick introductions, but she'll be taken aback when he walks in later to inform her he's chosen her as his mentor. 'I'm not part of that program,' she bristles. 'Yes you are,' he boldly counters, 'you're on the list.'
Sam continues to confront the CEO, a few minutes turning into negotiations for more. When Romy goes to a local club to unwind, she'll see him across the room just before a glass of milk is delivered to her. 'You're not going to drink that, are you?' a female colleague asks, but Romy picks up the glass and drains it, her eyes never leaving Sam's. 'Good girl,' he mouths.
A kiss in the office that sends her into a panic turns into a meeting in a low rent hotel room, one she leaves her husband's premiere to attend, ostensibly to stop this, but after noting his youth and the inappropriateness of the situation, Sam turns the tables. 'I have power over you - one phone call and you could lose everything.' Sam then orders her to kneel and once she finally acquiesces, brings her to orgasm, his hand up her skirt from behind. For a while Romy and Sam embark on an affair, but when Romy walks into her country house one afternoon to find Sam chatting with Jacob, Isabel (Esther McGregor, the upcoming "The Room Next Door") and Nora (Vaughan Reilly), panic sets in, a line crossed that will be crossed again.
Reijn artfully threads supporting strands into her tapestry. While it is bizarre to see Antonio Banderas play the cuckhold, he is also economically overpowered by his successful wife and will resort to physical fisticuffs to restore a balance. The filmmaker uses Esme as a secret weapon, Romy's young protege, a champion of female empowerment, using her boss for her own advancement, another power shift. Isabel's lesbian relationship will also suffer a setback due to a dalliance, an echo of her mother who reflects her right back when she dances with abandon with another woman at a club Sam has called her to.
Kidman does a high wire act here, ceding control in her affair yet retaining it in her professional life, shutting down a male superior's probing questions with authority. Dickinson maintains an air of mystery, another of Reijin's gender flips, while also convincing of genuine care for Kidman's character. These two generate genuine heat. "Babygirl" wraps with lessons learned applied for the benefit of a long term marriage before leaving us with a provocative new piece of information which throws everything we've just seen into a different light. Two decades after Maggie Gyllenhaal's "Secretary" helped her male boss achieve emotional connection via sexual kink, "Babygirl" switches power genders for a different, equally sexy, perspective.
A24 releases "Babygirl" in theaters on 12/25/24.
