One of the most divisive films of 2024 was Halina Reijn’s (Instinct) Babygirl. Much of this may be due to the film being Reijn’s follow-up to the highly successful Bodies, Bodies, Bodies, while of this may be due to the film’s taboo topic of a workplace affair between a superior and subordinate, revolving around domineering and submissive sex. Some filmgoers likely lined up on opening night to see this much-talked-about movie since its 2024 Venice International Film Festival screening. For many others, this would be a film they could never watch. While I am willing to give most films a fair chance (10-15 minutes at least), Babygirl is not one that I would have felt comfortable watching with someone else. It’s a film that takes a far too taboo subject for most social settings and groups to converse about and gives it a home. However, as well as the film felt genuine and honest, Babygirl did not venture into lanes we may have wished for. Presumably, what we thought would occur did exactly that. While it did those things well, many may be disappointed it didn’t try to go for something more profound. I lay somewhere in between.

Romy (Nicole Kidman—The Hours, Being the Ricardos) is the CEO and founder of Tensile, a company that develops robotics for warehouse delivery systems, eliminating the need for humans. She’s an alpha who knows what she wants and has little time for anything that doesn’t help her company’s bottom line. The most recent round of interns includes Samuel (Harris Dickinson – The Iron Claw, County Lines), whom Romy had seen early that morning on her way to the office. A menacing dog runs wild on New York City’s streets until Samuel whistles. When the dog hears Samuel’s whistle, he pauses and calmly returns to his owner. Romy doesn’t make the immediate connection and, likely, wouldn’t have made anything more of it, had Samuel not been more pressing in his pursuit of her, going so far as to pick Romy as Samuel’s mentor, despite her repeated statements that she is not part of the mentoring program.

In her personal life, things are quite different. In the film’s opening scene, we see her with her husband, Jacob (Antonio Banderas – Desperado, Pain and Glory), engaged in an intimate moment in bed. After Jacob finishes, Romy goes to a bathroom, lies on a tile floor, watches porn, and completes what she wasn’t able to achieve in bed. The couple has two young daughters, and the family is highly engaged in each other’s lives. They appear to be the perfect couple living the perfect life. However, from this initial scene, we know things are far from perfect. Reijn doesn’t waste the audience’s time letting us think otherwise.

Samuel succeeds in making Romy his mentor. Once her intern, Samuel, doesn’t hesitate to ask her personal questions that have nothing to do with work. It is clear that there is a mutual attraction between the two, and though she is his superior, Samuel is not afraid to test the boundaries. Likewise, Romy should resist the temptations and strike down his provocative questions; she entertains them to the point where they soon kiss, leading them to bed, thus leading to the complex power dynamics and sexual desire within the affair.

As the film advances, the power shifts from Romy to Samuel inside and outside the bedroom walls. In a private sexual setting, Romy can’t help but bow to Samuel’s commands. Outside of the room, Samuel holds the affair over Romy’s head. Samuel has nothing to lose. Romy could lose everything. Initially, Romy tries to break it off for fear of what would happen if anybody at the company or in her family found out. Still, she cannot suppress her desires for this handsome, cocky young, man who is not afraid to say what he means, both in public and private settings. In her vocation, she is authoritative and domineering. In her sexual life, Romy has different wishes and desires, something her husband cannot deliver, but something that Samuel readily can.  The steamier that the relationship becomes (Samuel claiming he has power over Romy privately and now professionally, and how she now obeys Samuel’s domineering commands), the more sexually aroused and fulfilled Romy feels.

As I mentioned in the opening paragraph, Babygirl goes exactly where you’d expect it to go. However, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t do its job well. It does. It does. The performances of Kidman, Dickinson,  and Banderas create such a dynamic between the three characters, where the character that you most want to root for (whichever character that may be) has an actor behind that character delivering the goods. Dickinson held his own opposite his two counterparts and their six combined Oscar nominations.

It also would have been easy to dismiss Banderas’s Jacob. While his character was secondary, the arc in his story was integral. A less talented actor may have portrayed Jacob in a way that felt flat, stale, or rehearsed. Banderas gives us a glimpse into Jacob’s soul. We see his hurt. We see his anger. He’s the everyman that all of us have either been or have never hoped to have to be. Jacob is a loving father and husband committed to his craft as a local theater director. He’s too trusting, busy, or oblivious to imagine his spouse cheating. Perhaps he’s a bit of each. Regardless, he felt most like the victim. However, this leads to another question that Reijn revisited in subtle and non-subtle ways. What is our tolerance for suppressing joy at the cost of hurting another? Or how close are we willing to get to the fire without getting burned?

However, as good as Dickinson and Banderas were, Babygirl was driven by Kidman’s performance. Reijn’s style was to capture the longings and desires of a successful businesswoman and, perhaps, compare her actions and consequences to those of a male counterpart. Romy’s complexities include her repressed desires of first entertaining and second, navigating an unconventional relationship, after being stuck in a familiar one that never satisfied her. While she did present to Jacob her desire for a more aggressive time between the sheets, she never outright stated this need, perhaps feeling the need to stay proper with a man as dignified and less-deviant than she. Kidman delivers the right amount of balance between a hard-ass CEO, a dutiful and respectful wife, and a licentious sexual deviant.

Babygirl will not be for everyone. However, if you go in with an open mind and, ideally, either alone or with someone you have a very open sexual relationship with, you’ll find this fast-paced movie is worth your time, even if it only tugs at some strings that you wish Reijn gave a harder pull to.

Plot 8.5/10
Character Development 8.5/10
Character Chemistry 8.75/10
Acting 8.25/10
Screenplay 8.25/10
Directing 8.5/10
Cinematography 8.75/10
Sound 8/10
Hook and Reel 9/10
Universal Relevance 9.5/10
86%

B

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