Certificate: TBC

Running Time: 114 mins

UK Distributor: Entertainment Film Distributors

UK Release Date: 10 January 2025

REVIEWED AT TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2024

WHO’S IN BABYGIRL?

Nicole Kidman, Harris Dickinson, Antonio Banderas, Sophie Wilde, Gaite Jansen, Esther McGregor, Vaughan Reilly, Victor Slezak, Anoop Desai, Bartley Booz, Maxwell Whittington-Cooper, Leslie Silva, Dolly Wells

WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?

Halina Reijn (director, writer, producer), David Hinojosa and Julia Oh (producers), Cristobal Tapia de Veer (composer), Jasper Wolf (cinematographer), Matthew Hannam (editor)

WHAT’S IT ABOUT?

A CEO (Kidman) has a sexual reawakening with her younger intern (Dickinson)…

WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON BABYGIRL?

The current argument over whether sex scenes are necessary in modern cinema is about to get a bit of a walloping when writer-director Halina Reijn’s Babygirl enters the scene. In a film that already prides itself in showing sex and pleasurable desire, specifically within a certain age group, as a powerful tool for personal and even spiritual reinvention, the Dutch filmmaker openly acknowledges how giving into our wilder sides, in all its kinky and fetish-friendly glory, could well be what we all need to feel fully secure about ourselves, no matter what your age or gender or sexual preference may be.

For some, Babygirl may well be the liberating release they need to finally be at piece with their innermost desires. For others, it might even become a new camp favourite, the kind of erotic thriller that actually does capture the eroticism of the situation rather than just exploit it for titillating purposes. Either way, you’re bound to have a fun time with it, not to mention walk away from it with an all-new respect for the art of on-screen desire that few others are willing to give this kind of movie.

The film centres around Romy (Nicole Kidman), the high-ranking CEO of an Amazon-like technology company who, despite her cushy job and comfortable relationship with her theatre director husband Jacob (Antonio Banderas), is frustrated by her lack of personal satisfaction. To better illustrate this, it opens with a scene of Romy and Jacob doing the nasty in a way that only really satisfies him, leaving her to sneak off to the other room and bring herself to orgasm via some pretty hardcore submissive porn, which turns out to be a less-than-subtle clue as to where her particular kinks lie. She is soon introduced to young new intern Samuel (Harris Dickinson), who immediately adopts a rather abrasive and controlling persona that initially rubs her the wrong way, but eventually begins rubbing her in exactly the right way – and yes, that pun is very much intended. Both her and Samuel eventually engage in an intimate affair, one where she all too willingly takes on a more submissive role next to his dominant one, leading to her feeling more and more at ease with her own self.

Like the Fifty Shades trilogy if it was conceived and made by adults who actually understand the complicated but potentially fulfilling nature of dom-sub relationships, Babygirl lets its freak flag fly in scenes where Kidman’s Romy is forced by Dickinson’s Samuel to get on all fours and be fed like an animal, at one point even putting down a saucer of milk that she promptly laps up. On paper, it may sound like the wackiest movie sex since Elizabeth Berkley throttled about in a swimming pool during Showgirls, but unlike Paul Verhoeven’s cult classic, Reijn portrays these scenes with a surprising respect for the characters’ blossoming sexuality, allowing them the safe space they need to completely indulge in their on-screen kinkiness without fear of judgement or condemnation.

The filmmaker also employs a growingly breathy score by Cristobal Tapia de Veer that builds upon the sexual tension between the two lovers as their attraction to one another becomes practically insatiable, while Jasper Wolf’s sharp cinematography encapsulates the drab wintery New York atmosphere (the film is set around the holidays, effectively making it a Christmas movie) into a collection of underlyingly arousing shots where the sexiness doesn’t necessarily come from what’s actually being shown on the screen. Because of these elements, Babygirl successfully captures the look and sound of an erotic movie that generates such sensuality from less obvious sources, which ends up giving the film a much wider canvas of eroticism to work with than just plucking it all from the physical and emotional performances of its actors.

On that note, it is stunning how much of herself Nicole Kidman gives to this movie. The actor has certainly not shied away from erotic roles in the past, particularly much earlier in her career, but here she presents a much more vulnerable side that proves she still knows how to transport herself to daring and depraved places that few other actors of her calibre would consider going. As both an instigator and victim of her own curiosity, Romy is a character that requires a considerable amount of adventurousness as well as dignity to allow this person to fully explore what she is capable of, and Kidman delivers all of that and more in one of her most realised performances in recent years, one where she never makes Romy the target of ridicule and always the source of unexpected strength (one climactic put-down might just be among the fiercest exchanges she’s ever delivered).

Of course, a film like this almost always hits many of the expected plot beats, and Babygirl is no exception. Certain boundaries are crossed – multiple times, in fact – and there are fiery confrontations that feel as though they’ve fallen out of a standard soap opera. As conventional as moments like these can be, Reijn still finds a number of ways to keep your interest firmly in place, whether it’s a powerfully liberating moment of sexual release or Harris Dickinson making the skin crawl by simply whispering the phrase “Good girl”, which leaves you curious as to how this particular story is going to wrap itself up.

For the most part, Babygirl is, indeed, a good girl.

SO, TO SUM UP…

Babygirl is an entertaining erotic thriller in which writer-director Halina Reijn presents a sensual and even liberating sexual awakening, boosted significantly by a firmly dedicated lead turn by an excellent Nicole Kidman.

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