To the uninformed bystander, Romy (Nicole Kidman) leads a perfect life. She is a beautiful CEO living in a lavish New York townhouse with two loving teenage daughters and a doting husband who still desires her after two decades of marriage. Still, in these twenty years, theatre director Jacob (Antonio Banderas) never managed to give his wife an orgasm. And boy, does Romy need one. When a dashing new intern walks into her office, it is as if all these years of suppressed fantasies come bubbling up within the woman, who finds in Samuel (Harris Dickinson) the opportunity to do what she never could with her husband: ask for what she wants. This sizzling seesawing between asking and giving drives much of Halina Reijn’s erotic drama “Babygirl.”
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It’s only been a few months since Kidman last tried her hand at playing a mother unexpectedly caught in a sexual rendezvous with a young man. Alas, while Netflix’s comedy “A Family Affair” veered dangerously close to the pastiche, Heijn’s prodding at sex and power proves a much more fertile ground for the Oscar-winning actress. The Dutch actress turned director, who starred in Paul Verhoeven’s 2006 “Black Book,” takes a page off her mentor’s rulebook to pay homage to the classic erotic thriller with a story about an intense relationship between a powerful executive and their younger employee. This time, however, the traditional gender roles are swapped.
That “Babygirl” packages itself as a feminist rereading of the erotic thriller doesn’t mean it makes the mistakes of similar efforts like Coralie Fargeat’s “The Substance,” which tries its hand at a feminist body horror but ends up reinforcing the stereotypes it sets out to debunk. Reijn employs many of her “Bodies, Bodies, Bodies” learnings to infuse her latest with a rare understanding of Gen Z, making “Babygirl” not only about the gendered questions surrounding a woman in a position of power becoming sexually involved with a younger subordinate but also the workplace issues that come from their generational gap.
This is where Sophie Wilde’s Esme, Romy’s right hand, comes in. An ambitious young professional with a seemingly sharp moral compass, Esme grants Reijn the chance to toy with Gen Z’s political correctness. The rising professional lobbies for more inclusion and diversity initiatives within the austere company, strategically choosing not to dwell on issues of the marginalization of lower-paid workers whose jobs the technology Romy’s company develops exterminate every day. Esme is, like many of her generation and the one that precedes it, plagued by contradictions, and the “Talk to Me” breakout imbues her with the snickering gentleness common to great connivers.
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But there is no good or bad in “Babygirl,” a film that spares its characters of moral judgment. Kidman plays Romy with a sustained sense of dread, a choice that only exacerbates the pleasure she experiences with Samuel. After an orgasm, reached in communion at last, the executive weeps — crying out of guilt but also in violent, all-consuming release. It is a performance that sees Kidman revisit much of what crowned her turns in seminal films like “Birth” and “Eyes Wide Shut,” equally sexually charged portrayals of women all too aware of the dangerous consequences of their desires but unwilling to deny themselves the thrill.
It’s a tricky feat to find an actor who can not only hold his own against Kidman but also channel the sexual confidence that comes from the particular marriage between the easy contentment of youth and the cockiness of perceived maturity. Dickinson smoothly slips into this slot, at once goofy and commandeering and with a refined understanding of his body. He contracts and expands his slender frame to adjust to spaces emotional and physical, at times boy, at others man, visually translating the ethical conflicts that permeate his and Romy’s relationship. It is a brilliant turn, as charming as it is moving.
This back and forth between assuredness and doubt also makes “Babygirl” a refreshing look at BDSM and questions of consent and desire. Reijn is unafraid to have her characters play out all the wobbles that come with negotiating one another’s boundaries, reinforcing how pleasure comes from good communication. That the Dutch director manages to do so while crafting some of the hottest sex scenes in a major film in years and without dropping the ball in pacing this satire on the era of the politically correct feels almost impossible. [A-]
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