Is Halina Reijn’s Babygirl a dark erotic thriller or a flipped #MeToo drama? Or a morality tale about the dangers of sexual desire? At various points in the movie you might be forgiven for wondering if it is going in any or all of these directions. But what is manifestly clear from the outset is that it is a perfect vehicle for the feverish, fearless talents of Nicole Kidman.
She plays Romy, the founder and CEO of a highly successful warehouse automation company about to launch a new product. Regarded as a trailblazer for women in business, Romy is married to a theatre director, Jacob (Antonio Banderas), has two teenage daughters (Esther McGregor and Vaughn Reilly) and divides her time, with Jacob, between a New York apartment and a two-storey weekend house.
But the vital thing we learn about her, before any of this, is her sexual frustration. Babygirl opens with a sex scene that looks for all the world like a passionate encounter between two people in perfect accord. Yet, after moans and groans and murmurs of “I love you,” Romy takes the first opportunity to rush off to another room to watch porn on her laptop and bring herself to orgasm.
Things are about to change, however. On her way to the office the next day she is intrigued by a young man calming down a frantic dog. When she is introduced to a new group of interns at her company, she realises he is one of them. And from the first moment she speaks to Samuel (Harris Dickinson) he has her on the defensive.
She becomes his official mentor, but he is the one taking the lead. He intuits things about her almost immediately. “I think you like being told what to do,” he tells her. She can’t help acknowledging his effect on her, but tries to bring everything back to their differences in age and status. He has a way of anticipating and challenging her responses.
As their encounters escalate, inside and outside the workplace, Romy is overwhelmed, barely able to control herself. There’s a scene in which she finds a tie that Samuel dropped at a work party; she grabs it, takes it away, smells it, rubs it on her face — for a moment, she almost seems ready to swallow it.
In films as varied as Eyes Wide Shut, Birth, To Die For and The Postman, Kidman has played women with complicated, singular or unorthodox relationships to sexual desire, propriety or convention. She has often been able to find an unexpected comic energy in her roles, and Babygirl is no exception. She is well matched by Dickinson, who brings a mercurial, inscrutable quality to Samuel. An element of play remains, even as their assignations more intensely explore both her sense of shame and the dynamics of pleasure, power and control.
Writer-director Reijn, in her third feature, keeps the focus squarely on Romy. Samuel’s life outside their rendezvous is never really shown, except for an occasion when Romy turns up unannounced at the bar where he works at a second job.
Both reveal to other people something about their childhoods. Romy says off-handedly that she “grew up in communes and cults,” and she hears Samuel talking about being brought up by a charismatic father who worked in high-level security and then became a philosopher and teacher. But these details are too fleeting to feel like the fleshing-out of character.
Reijn’s depiction of Romy’s private life suggests a disconnect rather than a breakdown. Jacob — who is preparing to direct a production of Hedda Gabler — is shown as a warm, affectionate husband and father, although he is clearly at a loss to understand what is happening to his wife. And although McGregor, as Romy’s older daughter, starts off being spiky and critical, she develops a greater closeness to her mother.
When it comes to the workplace, there is no doubt that Reijn is interested in the dynamics of corporate culture, particularly where they relate to women. And there is the intriguing presence of Esmé (Sophie Wilde), an ambitious young staffer who is keen to be guided by Romy and feels ready for promotion. There is an irony, perhaps, that the business revolves around robots: no need for nurturing there.
Where the film finally lands might lead some viewers to feel that Babygirl’s conclusion is on the conservative side. On the other hand, it could be argued that issues of power and abuse have been glossed over.
In the end, Babygirl’s emphasis is on what happens when a woman recognises her own desires. It is, in its own way, a modern fairytale, a story of Sleeping Beauty awakened. •
