On the surface, Romy’s life is perfect. She’s the wealthy CEO of a rapidly growing robotics company; her husband, Jacob, is hot (he’s played by Antonio Banderas); her teenaged daughters are only mildly challenging to deal with; she looks like Nicole Kidman. It’s the holidays and her life is busy, preparing for Important Work Things, supporting her husband as he prepares to open a new play on Broadway, shepherding her children by inserting handwritten notes into their packed lunches every morning. Romy has it all: fulfillment both material and personal, all tidily encased within society’s standards and expectations. There’s just one problem: Romy is bursting-at-the-seams horny.
Filmmaker Halina Reijn introduces us to Romy’s life and immediately shatters the illusion as Romy slinks from her marital bed, where she has passionate but unfulfilling sex with Jacob, to sprawl on the floor and masturbate to BDSM p-rn. Romy herself seems confused by what she’s doing, but it’s so ritualized it’s clearly her post-coital routine. Romy wants something she isn’t getting, but she doesn’t seem to understand this desire, or why Jacob’s enthusiastic sex isn’t enough for her. She hungers, but doesn’t know why, or what could possibly satisfy her.
Enter Samuel (Harris Dickinson), a new intern at Romy’s company. He’s 30-ish years younger than her and inappropriate in every way—too young, her employee, broke, never mind that she’s married. But Samuel captures Romy’s attention and interest right away, calling off a dog that rushes Romy in the street; later, when Romy asks how he diverted the dog, Samuel makes an inappropriate remark, setting the tone for their relationship. He is from minute one slightly too forward, just a little flirtatious, and apparently unafraid of Romy and the power she has over his career.
Romy perceives herself as the powerbroker in their relationship, keenly conscious of how it looks for her, a rare female CEO, to sleep with a younger male subordinate. Which is exactly the power Samuel actually wields, casually threatening blackmail if Romy doesn’t give him what he wants. Who really has the upper hand? Romy is his boss, she’s older and richer, but Samuel can say one word and utterly destroy her life, and they both know it. The danger for Romy seems greater, she has a lot more to lose than Samuel, but she can’t resist him and his power games, finally getting a taste of the kinky sex she secretly longs for. This is what Babygirl does so well: illustrate how the black and white boundaries of social expectation aren’t quite as clean as we want them to be.
Reijn is not interested in simple questions or simple answers. There is nothing simple about what Romy and Samuel are doing, their shifting, tangled power dynamics are an utter mess. Samuel can command Romy like a dog, but when she challenges him and elicits real vulnerability, he’s the one who tucks tail and runs. Reijn is assisted in her twisted endeavor by Kidman, who has never been better, and Dickinson, both of whom give brutally candid, emotionally stark performances. Kidman pokes fun at her own ice queen persona and the work she’s had done on her face; Dickinson isn’t afraid to, well, look like a dick. Samuel is in turns alarmingly sexy and embarrassingly callow, the kind of guy you think is hot but immediately regret the next morning. Romy, for her part, is coming unglued, but along the way she discovers the power of submission, and that satisfaction breeds confidence.
No one is safe from Reijn’s all-seeing lens, though. Romy’s assistant, Esme (Sophie Wilde), masks her ambition in the language of corporate female empowerment, and engages in her own power play when she recognizes Romy’s indiscretion. She talks a big game about women uplifting women, but she doesn’t hesitate to threaten Romy to get what she wants. No one is pure, everyone’s motives are complex and often contradictory, but at the heart of Babygirl is a surprisingly soft center, forgiving of human foibles and critical of the social norms and mores that force people into nearly inescapable boxes.
Babygirl is sexy, but also surprisingly funny, playing on a knife’s edge so fine it’s amazing the film works as well as it does. But Reijn keeps all her plates spinning; even as Romy’s world is upended, Reijn never loses sight of the humanist story she’s telling, she and the cast have a deep well of empathy for these characters. It’s the only reason Babygirl works, by acknowledging the messy humanity that insists on leaking through strict social dictates, the film finds humor, warmth, and forgiveness for the mistakes Romy makes, which are really just the mistakes any of us can and do make when our inner selves brush up against outside expectations writ large.
Babygirl is not so much an erotic thriller as it is deranged holiday rom-com.
Babygirl will play exclusively in theaters from December 25, 2024.