Written and Directed by Halina Reijn | 114 min | ▲▲▲▲▲ | Amazon Prime
A capsule review of this film appeared on FITI in September during #TIFF24
The marketing of this film has leaned heavily on it being an erotic thriller, the likes of which were popular among adult audiences in the 1980s and 1990s, directed by men like Adrian Lyne and Paul Verhoeven, both of whom Dutch filmmaker Reijn (Bodies Bodies Bodies) has admitted were big influences. (Lyne returned to the genre fairly recently — I liked Deep Water, not many others did.)
What distinguishes this take is Reijn’s specific vision. She’s left behind the male gaze, and made a film particularly about female pleasure. The message is clear right there on the poster: it’s never too late to “get exactly what you want.”
Nicole Kidman is Romy, the CEO of a Manhattan based robotics company. She’s climbed to the top of her profession by being savvy and ruthless, and she has everything you think she could want — two teenaged kids, a handsome husband, Jacob, played by the too-sexy Antonio Banderas. She’s also compelled by concern around her image as a middle-aged woman in power to get regular botox injections. Her daughter complains to her about what it does to her face.
Romy is also sexually unsatisfied. She and Jacob don’t communicate well, and she’s never been honest with him about her faked orgasms.
Into her life arrives the tall, handsome, and half-her-age Samuel (Harris Dickinson, Triangle of Sadness). He’s an intern at her company and he’s interested in Romy. You can tell he senses her dissatisfaction, and he’s pretty blatant about his interests. She could cast him out, but part of her is intrigued. That’s where the power and submission games begin, and how the transgressive nature of their sexual connection, as seen from her perspective, flips genre expectations.
This isn’t an unusual dynamic for Kidman, who has played “the older woman” in To Die For opposite Joaquin Phoenix and, more recently, A Family Affair with Zac Efron. Cinematic culture’s been interested in it as well in the past year or so with the genuinely creepy May December and the much more romantic The Idea Of You. This time the story is much more about the older woman coming to terms with her kink. The last time I saw anything as daring as this in the mainstream was probably Peter Strickland’s Duke of Burgundy, and even that didn’t feature a performance as courageous as what Kidman brings to the screen here, or the playful spirit of her creative partner, filmmaker Halina Reijn.
Babygirl surprises for being so much fun, absent the self-serious melodrama that inevitably oozes from this kind of material. Even when the stakes are incredibly high for Romy — the way the film (and Kidman’s performance) is able to make us understand how much joy she’s discovering, and how much was absent in her life before this man appeared in her world, makes it a genuinely unique and welcome holiday treat.
Maybe don’t choose your parents as your cinepanions, but your partner? Oh, yes. And then prepare for a frank and robust post-movie conversation, or maybe just head home for some quality time.
