“Babygirl” Review

If last year’s erotic thriller Fair Play was a battle of the sexes in the shifting dynamic in the workplace, Babygirl is the fallout of that war where the women won. The genre of workplace affairs where men held more power has shifted to that of women. The good news is that type of film doesn’t present itself as a gender inversion of this familiar type of story. The bad news is that it only dabbles in the drama rather than plunges headfirst into the wilder world of desire, both business and sexual.

There is some attraction to how Nicole Kidman portrays the conflicted CEO, Romy Mathis. In the boardroom, she asserts herself as a powerful figure that had to fight for her role at a company embracing automation. In the bedroom, she has a desperation for feeling sexually unsatisfied with her husband, Jacob (Antonio Banderas). Not satisfied with secretly watching porn to finish her orgasms, she seeks an affair with an attractive intern, Samuel (Harris Dickinson). The romantic tension builds between them, as well as the bitterness for the situation. Despite how much erotic power Romy grants towards Samuel, he realizes he’s being used.

Kidman’s character is given some more dimension beyond the thirst for an intern. Although she puts up a front, she does have a genuine connection with her daughters, especially the teenage girl Isabel (Esther McGregor), now that she’s dating. Isabel serves as a reminder of Romy’s influence, considering that the girl is starting to play the field. That family bond helps ground her more, thinking little of the women that populate her office. Esme (Sophie Wilde) is Romy’s assistant, who looks up to her, but all Romy can see in the office is competition.

There’s a decent amount of emotional complexity to Romy, where frustrations bubble. Honesty becomes a hard concept after having fought hard for her position. She brings up to her husband how she’d like to watch porn during sex, but finds herself embarrassed and shutting down the conversation as though it were more of a suggestion than a desire. Sex with the intern turns out to be far more adventurous with a master/slave dynamic, where Romy shifts into submission as a break from her power. But it won’t last. Part of her realizes that, making her strike back against her husband and lover in vicious verbal attacks. Thankfully, the men in her life are not bland players for this drama, as in the inevitable scene where Jacob and Sam clash not just over a woman, but their perceptions of what led to this point. Jacob declares this more of a power move, but Sam dismisses that as an aged perspective.

While this is an intriguing subject, the film never takes off, even in its more heated and arousing moments. There are some genuinely hot moments in the bedroom, but they’re all approached with a certain clinical nature. While the scenes between Romy and Jacob are no-frills bedroom antics, most of the scenes between Romy and Jacob are slathered with a dizzying sensation of youthful recapturing. This aspect is evoked to its hardest of neon degrees, where Romy meets up in a club of loud electronic music and lights. The correlations also stumble, as in the parallel scenes with how Jacob treats a dog, intercut between Romy’s more enjoyable sex with her husband. Even the ultimate thesis seems to arrive too simply, where all it takes is Kidman telling some people to shut the fuck up and be more open about her desires with her husband. As satisfying as it is to hear Kidman take charge, it’s more of an enjoyable moment than an organic progression of her character, especially since we’re given a preview of this mindset.

Babygirl doesn’t explore as much as it should for an erotic thriller that desires far more than sexual gratification. Perhaps the film spends so much time trying to touch on the mixture of business and sex that it never gives the characters enough time to develop past a few titillating sex scenes and a handful of dramatic exchanges about who is in charge. This film might approach this paradigm shift, but much like Romy having sex with her husband, there’s an unfulfilled aspect that makes you want to go watch a better movie in the same way Romy watches some pornography to finish the job.