Nicole Kidman’s repressed CEO is drawn to Harris Dickinson’s confident young intern in a capital-E erotic thriller. Here’s our Babygirl review.
Since emerging as the cool indie distributor to end cool indie distributors a little over a decade ago, much of A24’s output can be divided neatly into two camps: spooky, and extremely horny. Which side of the equation Babygirl falls on for you will depend on whether you have a phobia of animal-roleplay, but the film’s marketing campaign – featuring Nicole Kidman in a near constant state of erotic shock – is clearly targeting one half of the studio’s audience over the other.
Bodies Bodies Bodies director Halina Reijn returns to helm, write and produce the provocative story of Romy (Kidman), the buttoned-up CEO of a warehouse automation juggernaut caught off-guard by the magnetic confidence of a much younger intern, Samuel (Dickinson). Unfulfilled by sex with her theatre-director husband (Antonio Banderas), she embarks on an affair which brings up plenty of uncomfortable questions for everyone involved.
From this outrageous premise, though, comes a very smart film. From the off, it seems entirely uninterested in easy answers, instead using its, shall we say, complicated central dynamic to dive headlong into questions of power and sexual politics with a confidence it is difficult not to be blown away by.
Kidman and Dickinson have both rarely been better; their dynamic, which could so easily descend into an unbelievable farce in the wrong hands, is perfectly judged. Romy’s apotheosis through sexual liberation takes her from a surprisingly quiet but steely, determined CEO to a looser, more confident version of herself even as she grapples with the morality of her behaviour. Samuel radiates big-coated charisma with a sweaty musk you can practically smell, delivering outrageous dialogue with enough brazen self-confidence that we can somehow believe his new boss won’t simply throw him from a tenth-storey window.
The score from Cristobal Tapia de Veer is booming and bass-heavy, like deeply hidden desires bursting out of the sound mix. Reijn and cinematographer Jasper Wolf’s camera dips in and out of focus as its subjects’ heads spin from either erotic fascination or (more likely) all-encompassing stress.
Because there’s enough illicit sex here to warrant a nervous breakdown – possibly even too much. There’s only so many times we can watch Kidman eat chocolates out of Dickinson’s hand before it stops having the same impact, and there’s some indication in Babygirl’s second act that we’re just treading sexy water before things inevitably fall to pieces.
But pacing problems aside, that the film manages to take the thorniest of thorny issues and make something so funny, smart and flat-out entertaining should be a cause for celebration. As always happens when awards season comes around, mid-budget, grown-up movies are back, baby; except this time, we really do mean grown-up.
Babygirl is in UK cinemas from the 10th January.
