I’m seeing Babygirl, the second English-language feature from Bodies Bodies Bodies director, Halina Reijn, being labelled an “erotic thriller”, which I find somewhat odd. It’s erotic, most definitely. It’s thrilling. But it’s not a thriller in the way that term is typically understood. We’re not talking about Basic Instinct, here. Babygirl more closely resembles a classical type of sexy French ménage à trois psychodrama about power dynamics and repressed sexuality, but done in A24’s fashion magazine visual style and firmly situated in the recent trend of movies that affirm a woman’s right to be a pervert.
Nicole Kidman stars as Romy, the CEO of an advanced automation company. She’s in a stable (i.e. unexciting) marriage with theatre director Jacob (Antonio Banderas) and has strong relationships with her two daughters, Isabel and Nora (Esther McGregor and Vaughan Riley). Her company is launching a new initiative and has hired a slate of ambitious interns to assist in the rollout. Although Romy seems perfectly qualified and capable in her leadership role, she clearly struggles with confidence, nervously rehearsing the words to public statements and undergoing regular botox treatments to maintain a veneer of youth, a practice that is callously mocked by her well-meaning but immature kids.
Everything about Romy’s professional and personal life is deliberately and meticulously manicured, not necessarily restrictive or severe, but comfortable, predictable, and uncomplicated. Her ritzy Manhattan office building is staffed by friendly and competent professionals, her penthouse and second home in the country are tastefully decorated and spotless (you never see housekeepers in the film, but you know there have to be some). Even her company’s product reflects a desire for simplicity and intellectual ease, a slick automation system designed to reduce the need for menial labor and, more importantly, the need for thought. Something to do it all for you. We come to see this as a psychosexual need for Romy, as well. First when, with trepidation, Romy attempts to elicit a “free use” style sexual roleplay with the vanilla Jacob, who rejects her request, not wanting to feel like a “villain”. Then later, when she begins an affair with the alluring and enigmatic intern, Samuel (Harris Dickinson) and becomes his Sub.
Samuel sparks Romy’s interest from afar when she sees him calm an aggressive dog on the street outside their building. It’s as if Romy immediately senses and is drawn to what she perceives as dominant traits in Samuel from her very first encounter with him, his interaction with the dog less a sign of a sensitive communion with animals, but of his inherent Alpha power, the ability to make things submit. And Samuel, too, senses this, and quickly seizes on the opportunity to stoke the temptation.
Quickly their ambiguous flirtations escalate into clandestine meetings, the most memorable of which takes place in a classically seedy hookup hotel room. They awkwardly navigate their Dom/Sub dynamic, with Samuel coaxing the reluctant Romy into a series of typical kink activities punctuated by her intermittent protests that this relationship is wrong, inappropriate, unethical, that she is much too old and he much too young, and working as her subordinate on top of that. None of it matters, though, and Reijn shoots the scene with inviting warmth and a gradual but deliberate rise in intensity via the editing, ending with Romy on the floor and Samuel somewhere off behind her, doing something unseen. Romy’s concealed face and bare pleasure take up the entire frame as she emits a growling, guttural moan, a kind of unvain and vulnerable expression rarely seen in cinema and certainly not in porn.
All this is to say that Babygirl sets out to depict sexuality, kink, and power dynamics realistically, candidly, and with nuance, but not without the kind of aesthetic considerations that yield a nicely stylized and sensual eroticism. Ultimately, though, the deeper themes make the film stand out. Babygirl explores the validity of self-objectification and the complexity of power in relationships. Several films this year have dealt with age gaps, specifically between older women and younger men, and thankfully tackle the subject without judgment, Babygirl being perhaps the most forwardly supportive of its older female lead.
Babygirl takes a chisel to the monolithic, black-and-white framing of internet moralizers and reveals “power dynamics” as what they really are— fluid, sometimes paradoxical exchanges. Mainstream attitudes, today, would cast Romy as predatory for having a relationship with a younger man who works for her, but by inviting us into her life, the film shows the sort of sexual repression and professional pressure that makes her vulnerable to a man like Samuel, who makes it clear that he could ruin her life with a single phone call.
This, of course, doesn’t stop people from casting easy and pre-ordained judgments on her when the affair is exposed, with another intern going so far as to blackmail Romy, clearly staking out a moral high ground based on her “lack of power” as an intern, all while holding Romy’s personal life over her head to further her own professional goals. “I genuinely believed women with power would behave differently,” she chides without a hint of irony, all while leveraging this damaging information, and the power it gives her, to get a promotion.
Samuel, for his part, has less clear motivations, but the fact that he seems to choose Romy as his Sub specifically because of her status further eschews easy conclusions about their relationship. It suggests that the younger or less powerful person may seek out that power because of the way it increases their sense of control, while those in power may be looking for ways to submit as a contrast to the normal contexts in which they’re heaped with responsibility.
What also sets Babygirl apart is a more lighthearted tone compared to other films of its kind. There’s a lot of humor sprinkled throughout, and a lack of any discernible bad guys other than a few jerks on the periphery. While Romy’s infidelity constitutes a moral failing, Reijn does not condemn her for it. Samuel, as well, is not villainized or a Christian Grey-type figure— only somewhat enigmatic, and still human and vulnerable. Although it has serious themes, Babygirl is a funny, sexy, sometimes even lighthearted drama about the virtues of kink and the oversimplicity of popular narratives about so-called power imbalances in sex and relationships. It’s a kind of refreshing and topical genre cinema that isn’t afraid to be controversial, something we need a whole lot more of. Titillation almost always acts as some form of provocation, one that works best when confronting conventional moral attitudes. | Nic Champion
