Written and directed by Halina Reijn
I remember slot cars being fun to watch. They were little brightly colored race cars you’d place in a groove on a track and a light touch on your controller would send them flying, taking corners at speeds that would snap a real person’s neck. Push it too hard and the car might fly off its groove, so there was always a hint of danger to things, even if you always knew where you were going, stuck as you were to this literal one-track circuit. The draw is less now far removed from childhood.
Babygirl, Halina Reijn’s story about a high-powered CEO who enters a Dom/Submissive relationship with a much younger intern, promises the provocative, and while it does whizz and whirr thanks to its subject matter and powerhouse performance from Nicole Kidman as the sexually stifled CEO, it’s ultimately a one-track tame affair that leaves something to be desired from its evocation of lust, and exploration of shame.
Kidman stars as Romy, CEO of a AI/automation supply chain company, a sleek enterprise with her as an accomplished leader atop of it: on the surface, she’s a devoted wife and present mother, slipping little notes into the lunchboxes of her two teen daughters, one sunny, one surly, and she’s also a kind but visionary leader of men and women alike. Progressive, proper, professional.
Her husband Jacob, a sensitive theatre director played by Antonio Banderas, is milquetoast in bed, though, his nurturing lovemaking a tepid replacement for the humiliation Romy secretly wants and only indulges later on the floor of her home office, one hand between her legs, the other stifling moans while she watches porn wherein a woman is thoroughly dominated by a gruff-sounding man rasping out commands about where his sperm is about to go.
Fair enough, she’s got a stressful job, it’s not hard to imagine she’d like the pressure taken off her when she takes the pressure off. A secretive wank isn’t hurting anyone. Then Samuel, a young, handsome intern in the guise of Harris Dickinson, walks in with the smile of a butcher’s dog and provokes a number of repressed fantasies in Romy. Can she resist? You already know.
Babygirl is never surprising even when it steps slightly outside the realm of eroticism that we’re usually treated to, especially these days. 50 Shades of Grey introduced a bit of violence to the mainstream sexual vocabulary, but here it’s much more about the domination and submission between partners, and the erotic release that can be triggered in surrender.
Romy’s expected to have all the answers at the office, so to put herself in Samuel’s hands, literally and figuratively, holds obvious allure. Babygirl has its fun with this premise, but you don’t need to be in Human Resources to imagine the consequences of the amoral affair.
Reijn’s movie is as predictable as a New Year’s Eve countdown, but it summersaults through its plot beats well enough, throwing on a pop song or two for a montage of these two attractive people having attractive sex. It’s never boring, and it makes Babygirl a “just fine” film that still could’ve been much more, letting itself down with its lack of daring, unimaginative filmmaking, and lazy writing.
For a movie about the liberation fulfilled desire can provide, Reijn’s direction isn’t concerned with the sensual in its depiction at all, either locking its lens on Kidman’s face and trusting her to deliver (she does, so the decision’s warranted to be fair) or just playing music over the frolicking. There’s no real attempt to describe or portray the feeling that so overwhelms Romy, and instead it stays very middle of the road. For a movie about sexual exploration, it’s surprisingly unconcerned with the body and its senses. As a result, there isn’t much to make panties dewy and pants feel tight.
Reijn’s script is efficient for the most part, but it’s also sloppy in crucial ways. Romy’s submissive kink is suggested to be rooted in her religious upbringing as part of a cult, and there was potential for something really hairy and interesting here, but Reijn balks at going any further with Romy’s repressive shame and guilt, opting to let it slide by and keep things nice, smooth, and clean-shaven.
A shrug of an ending is the final tired hump of Babygirl, a sleek and intriguing bit of erotica on its surface, but ultimately a letdown that’ll have you roll over in bed, stick a hand between your legs, and think of something else in search of real satisfaction.
Mikkel Frederiksen 