Babygirl | 2024
Nicole Kidman and Harris Dickinson in BABYGIRL. Photo by Niko Tavernise. Courtesy of A24.
There was a time when the erotic thriller was something of a Hollywood staple. Karina Longworth's "You Must Remember This" podcast recently did a two-season deep-dive into the erotic films of the 1980s and 90s, a series that inspired me to explore the genre myself, focusing mainly on 90s erotic thrillers like Single White Female, Indecent Proposal, and Basic Instinct. It's a genre that is essentially dead; a shifting media landscape and changing social mores have not only sanitized sexuality in movies but have also made erotic thrillers essentially a thing of the past.
In that regard, something like Halina Reijn's Babygirl feels like something of a revelation, a modern throwback to the erotic thrillers of the 80s and 90s that grappled directly with sexuality as one of their core themes. Nicole Kidman's penchant for working with trailblazing filmmakers and pushing herself artistically also speaks well for Babygirl’s pedigree. While the sexual politics at its core hint at something potentially interesting, I ultimately found the film a bit listless and confused, caught in a web of conflicting needs and desires that it doesn't feel willing or able to explore completely.
Nicole Kidman stars as Romy, the CEO of a large tech company who finds herself drawn to the sexual advances of a young intern named Samuel (Harris Dickinson). Despite being married and having a child, Romy is both intrigued and repulsed by Samuel's dominance and soon finds herself giving into his overtures and descending into a previously unexplored world of pleasure and kink, exploring her own desire to give up the control she exercises in every day life and find liberation through submission.
Romy's submission, however, always feels hesitant. The dynamic between the two is never really negotiated, and while depiction doesn't equal endorsement, this doesn't allow the film to really explore what's really going on between them. Romy is consistently resistant, trying to remain in control despite her desire to submit. While sexually speaking a submissive should always remain in control of a scene, that doesn't seem to be the dynamic these two have. It's either a misunderstanding of kink dynamics or a failure to examine the lack of communication between the two or Romy’s self-destruction. Romy finds the risk of losing everything erotic. Samuel is intoxicated by the proximity to power. But as their dynamic threatens to spill out into everyday life, things get out of control, a problem that extends to the film itself.
Kidman is fantastic here, naturally. It's a bold performance in a film that will certainly turn heads and cause plenty of online discourse if it gets enough eyes on it, but I never felt like its ideas ever congealed in a satisfactory way. There can be power in submission or, indeed, taking control of one's sexuality in general, and that doesn't necessarily dictate who you are outside of the bedroom. Babygirl picks and prods at ideas of sexual and gendered power dynamics, but doesn't seem to want to confront them directly, so we are left with an erotic thriller that seems stuck in the mud, furiously spinning its tires and never really getting anywhere. Kidman lights up the screen, but the film around her doggedly refuses to step up to her level.
