Contradictions.
Human existence is a convoluted series of contradictions.
Can one be organized while chaos reigns?
Can I be powerful if I relinquish control?
Am I a good person if I have wicked thoughts?
Can I love the whole of myself if I despise parts that make up the whole?
These are all questions that writer and director Halina Reijn attempts to confront head on in her new sexually intense and strangely romantic and tender film, Babygirl.
Babygirl stars Nicole Kidman in a tour-de-force performance as Romy, a high powered CEO of a multi-billion dollar robotics company.
Her life is a perfectly machined, well oiled, picture perfect existence. She has the model family for a neo-nuclear age. Romy seemingly has it all.
However, under that tightly-wound, hyper-controlled facade Romy hides what she believes is a wicked creature. One with wants and lascivious desires. Desires she feels she can never reveal to her husband because of society’s puritanical nature and the mold that is cast for women of her status. It’s a mold she feels she will never be able to break free from.
So she lives in secret misery, constantly burying her desires deeper as she continues to pretend to be this perfectly held together mother/wife/boss/automaton.
Enter Samuel played by Harris Dickinson.
Samuel is seemingly quiet and unremarkable.
He is one of a group of new interns who is brought in to learn and be mentored by executives at Romy’s company. She sees something in Samuel that isn’t quite what he seems.In an incident on the street prior to their official meeting and then a chance encounter in the office Samuel reveals a bold brashness that is completely unexpected by Romy. She is both taken aback, and drawn in by his audacity.
What follows is a cat and mouse game of power and confabulation that grows ever more sexually charged until it all comes to a head. The aftermath will either destroy Romy’s life or quite possibly fulfill it in ways she never even thought possible. Ultimately, the choice will be hers and hers alone.
As previously mentioned the entire premise of the film is built on a series of contradictions.
If Romy had just told her husband what she wanted in the first place and wasn’t ashamed of her desires, she wouldn’t have sought fulfillment elsewhere. But then we wouldn’t have a movie in the first place. It is the constraints society that has placed on her saying that a “good girl” doesn’t have those kinds of thoughts that has propelled her into the unwieldy and torrid affair with her younger subordinate.
There is the dichotomy of Romy’s professional life and her secret affair with the young intern. The conflict within the power imbalance between Romy and Samuel as boss subordinate and Samuel and Romy as submissive and dominant. The antimony of who is actually using who to get what they want, whether it is Romy and her husband, Romy and Samuel, Romy and Esme, her junior exec, and so on and so on.
What director Reijn has constructed is a very intricate web of interlinking conflicts and power struggles that many people face, or choose not to face, and sometimes dire consequences of those decisions.
In the end, the irony is that all these people who don’t think they have control ultimately have all the control. If they just confront their desires and are honest with themselves they can master themselves. How each character acts determines their fate.
There is freedom and liberation in being honest with oneself.
I was personally conflicted with this movie because I love what Reijn is conveying in this film. Her overall message is there. However, I feel like there is a combination of things that prevent this film from being an absolute masterpiece.
First, the script is all over the place. I know what she is wanting to tell the audience. Then there is what she has actually presented. There are many moments of pure genius throughout this film.
Unfortunately I feel so much confusion in the motivations and actions of the characters. Perhaps that is what she is ultimately going for but I don’t think so.
The only reason I know what the director’s desire was for this film was because I read the production notes for the film in the press kit after I watched the film. Once I read her intentions I got it and like I said, I could see glints of that in the film. The fact that it needed that explanation makes me feel like Reijn was not as successful in conveying it in the film as she would have liked to be..
I feel like there needs to be a clearer definition of who Samuel is, what his role is for both himself and for Romy.
Knowing now that the idea is that perhaps he himself doesn’t even know what part he is playing, that both he and Romy are experimenting with the fluctuating power imbalance and dynamic within their relationship both in the bedroom and in the office, I can begin to understand what the director is going for. That just needed to be made a little more clear to the audience.
Perhaps it was there in the writing and the character of Samuel called for a stronger actor than Harris Dickinson was able to portray.
I felt he was the weakest link in the stellar cast. Not that he was terrible, but I felt that the complexity of the role, having to teeter on the balance beam of dominant and submissive personalities while still remaining likable may have been slightly out of his wheelhouse. Dickinson may not have the chops to convincingly give Samuel the performance he needed. It’s most notable when acting against such incredible actors as Kidman and Antonio Banderas, not to mention Sophie Wilde, who knocks it out of the park as Esme.
Esme’s character arc from wide-eyed junior executive who looks up to Romy to disillusioned opportunist who sees a way to shift the power dynamic with Romy to her advantage, without actually taking her revered boss down, is amazing. Having Esme see Romy as a mentor and a living example of the proverbial “girlboss” and not wanting to destroy her while using Romy’s indiscretions to advance her own career is such a powerful message. This message is something you probably would not have gotten were this movie made by a man.
Overall I think this is an incredibly important film.
The stand out performances by both Kidman and Banderas are 100% Oscar worthy and I hope the Academy recognized Kidman especially this year.
I feel Kidman, like Demi Moore in this year’s The Substance, has given a powerhouse performance and I love that roles like this are being provided to actresses over the age of 50. Let’s keep them coming.
There needs to be more films written and directed by women like Babygirl, films that challenge the established idea of sexually charged films that have traditionally been made by male creators like Verhoeven, Lynne, and De Palma. The script could have used a little tweaking but in the end I love that this movie exists and I hope it ushers in more like it.
Overall this film is a success and I feel like it needs to be seen. I want to watch it again and see if some of the things I spoke of as faults were there and I just happened to miss them.
* * * * * *
Produced by David Hinojosa, Halina Reijn, Julia Oh
Written and Directed by Halina Reijn
Starring Nicole Kidman, Harris Dickinson,
Sophie Wilde, Antonio Banderas


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