Movie Review: Babygirl
There’s an interesting idea to Babygirl, writer/director Helena Reijn’s latest erotic thriller, about the controlling being controlled. The film follows Romy (Nicole Kidman), a high-power CEO of a tech company who starts having an affair with a recently hired intern (Harris Dickinson) despite being married with children. Kidman’s Romy is always in control, whether with the happenings in her company or her personal life and while she is good at being in control and seems to have her life under control, she has a yearning to be controlled herself, which Dickinson’s Samuel discovers and explores in interesting ways, which confuses Romy about what she wants and who she is.
The problem is Babygirl is dreadfully boring and poorly written. The opening scene sets the stage for everything the movie is about. It opens with Romy having sex with her husband Jacob (Antonio Banderas). After he has gone to sleep, Romy rushes to another room to watch porn of a woman being dominated by another man and she gets off to it, showing that she enjoys this idea of being dominated but doesn’t know how to express it. Kidman and Banderas are in their 50s and 60s, respectively, and even if they are playing slightly younger in Babygirl, you get the feeling their characters have been married for a long time. Has this never come up in a conversation before? During an argument later in the film, Kidman expresses that she’s never had an orgasm from Jacob. Why has that never come up either? It’s not like Jacob is a mean, intimidating husband who wouldn’t listen to her, so it’s hard to believe that this couple never had any conversation like this.
So how does Romy end up with Samuel? She finds him attractive because the first time she sees him he gets a loose dog under control on the streets outside her office. All he does is call for the dog and pet it and she’s immediately stricken by how he handled the situation. They have a couple of conversations at work and she ogles him at the company Christmas party, and then when Samuel has a one-on-one meeting with Romy, he makes a move to kiss her, and thus, their affair begins. The affair begins so fast and only after a few minor things that it doesn’t make any sense. Also, Samuel goes in to kiss Romy after they’ve only communicated a couple of times and none of their conversations even remotely hinted that either were attracted to each other, which is a very strange and bold move that could have easily gotten him fired. Again, it didn’t make any sense.
Kidman is one of the great living screen actresses working today and Dickinson is an exciting young talent whom I’ve liked in a lot of other projects. Neither give a bad performance here but the two lack any sort of chemistry. There were no sparks in their scenes together, which only made trying to believe in what they were doing even harder. Samuel’s motivations are also very confusing. Does he want a relationship with Romy? Despite saying he doesn’t, he shows up to her home on several occasions, almost like he wants to destroy her marriage and life. Does he like the idea of controlling her? Is he just winging it? I had no idea who this character was or why they were doing what they were doing, which doesn’t help when they are the second most important character in the film.
Babygirl misses the mark on erotic thrillers. The pacing is a slog, the plot is poorly executed, and the characters are underwritten and bland. This is one of those movies that has a lot of talented people in and around it, but they were unable to come up with something good.
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