Halina Reijn’s Babygirl starts with an awkward sex scene. From our, and the man’s point, it’s a straightforward act that looked enjoyable. But as soon as it’s all quiet, the woman retires to another room and continues the job by herself with the pornography. The woman is Romy (Nicole Kidman), and her husband, Jacob, is played by Antonio Banderas. So the film starts with a significant demand from your audience – once upon a time, a woman wasn’t satisfied by Antonio Banderas. I mean, I can believe in elves, orcs and space wizards, but this? This is pushing my suspension of disbelief.
Romy is a successful CEO for an up-and-coming startup focused on automation. Her life is perfect, and she’s respected both at work and in her family. Her husband is also a successful theatre director, and their daughters are cool urban upper-middle-class New York girls.
But Romy lives her life with a grey cloud hanging over her head, which is completely swathed when a young intern joins the ranks of her company. Samuel (Harris Dickinson) pegs Romy for what she is a mile away. “I think you like to be told what to do,” he confidently tells her in a breach of HR policy so blatant. He’s lucky he looks like that.
But he’s right. Romy, at the height of her 50s, rediscovers a sexual proclivity she always knew was in her but never thought of acting on — maybe because her family was more important, and her work life took away from these kinds of thoughts. But Samuel comes into her life like a steamy romance novel—unpredictable and offering precisely what she wants before she even asks for it. It’s 50-year-old shades of grey. S&M for beginners.
Reijn’s previous film was the cathartic Gen Z thriller fantasy Bodies Bodies Bodies, in which a bunch of rich teenagers play a killing game during a hurricane. It’s a funny and acerbic film that taps into that generation’s shortcomings, especially how unaware they are about the class divide.
Babygirl doesn’t have that incisiveness. It makes sense that the best scenes are the ones with Romy’s older daughter Isabel (Esther McGregor), a gender-ambiguous lesbian so tuned to the moment that she is not anchored by any moral preconceptions like monogamy. Sadly, a few conversations with her mother are set as learning moments for Romy, but they never achieve that goal.
Some scenes are sexy, mainly because Nicole Kidman gives herself to the role with impressive dedication. But her chemistry with Dickinson isn’t the best, which isn’t really his fault – we never really grasp Samuel as a character because the point of view is strictly hers. And while I understand that Reijn does that on purpose, the lack of another side makes it difficult to grasp the complexity of the drama. It reminded me of the classic Steve Shainberg erotic drama Secretary, where Maggie Gyllenhall is lured into a relationship with a dominant lawyer played by James Spader. Now that film is too masculine in its distortion of the sub-dom fantasy, and I understand Reign consciously flipping the tables here – but what Shainberg does is he reveals to the audience things that the main protagonist doesn’t know, and it’s in this dichotomy between what we know and what they don’t that something more profound about that character is revealed. Babygirl lacks that depth.
Still, it’s worth it for Kidman’s tour-de-force, and a story that so effortlessly documents how middle-aged women relate to their fantasies and kinks is important. Visually, Reijn is an interesting filmmaker who knows how to explore light in the shots almost impressionistically. But as a writer (she didn’t write Bodies Bodies Bodies), she commits the cardinal sin of falling in love with her character so much that she refuses to second-guess her.
Verdict: 2.5 out of 5
For fans of Nicole Kidman, who would love to see her at her most intense again, this is a must-see. Remember how she was in Lee Daniels’ underrated The Paperboy? She tapped on that same sweat and blood for this one.
Ticket giveaway – Presence
LSJ and Rialto Distribution have 10 double passes for the upcoming psychological thriller Presence.
It’s there before the family even moves in. It witnesses the family’s most intimate uncomfortable moments. It navigates the family’s new house at supernatural speed. It pays unusual attention to Chloe, the teenage girl who’s neither her mother’s nor her brother’s favourite. It wants — no, it needs — something. And as time goes on, the presence pieces together how it might accomplish its goal. An unusual, unnerving, and emotional thriller from writer David Koepp and director Steven Soderbergh.
For a chance to win one of the ten double passes, email journal@lawsociety.com.au your details with the subject line PRESENCE before Wednesday 5 February.