Sex is what drew us in to Halina Reijn’s misguided and erotic film “Babygirl”.
It begins and ends with Nicole Kidman's Romy mid-intercourse with her husband (Antonio Banderas, clueless throughout). We watch her her on top as she’s brought to orgasm; or so we think. Romy immediately skitters down the hall on colt-like legs to secretly masturbate to porn while her husband slumbers peacefully on. The next morning, clad in a 1950's house wife apron, she lovingly makes and labels lunches for her two teenaged daughters and stares at her own reflection, preparing for her day as the CEO of an automated warehouse tech company. She is a powerful woman who seems to have it all, and yet is deeply sexually unsatisfied.
Cue an encounter with Samuel (Harris Dickinson). He appears to be almost magically calling a strange dog to heel. Romy and Samuel make eye contact, and sexual tension shivers through them. The plot is off to the races.
We learn that Samuel is Romy’s much younger intern, who will later coerce her into a submissive role. Billed as an erotic thriller, the film was anything but; the audience belly laughed their way through Samuel's extremely inappropriate pursuit of Romy. In some ways he typifies a middle aged woman's fantasies: He's good looking and, if you squint your eyes, his attentiveness to Romy follows a rom-com narrative. However, his portrayal is so dead eyed and unemotional save for a few key scenes that he is little more than a blank slate, his remove a wall of glass for Romy to throw emotional tomatoes at as he stands unscathed.
The affair progresses, and Samuel threatens to out Romy to HR unless she agrees to do everything he tells her. To be clear, this is not consent. Manipulating and coercing consent is not, well, consensual.
At the same time, Samuel also strikes up a relationship with Romy’s second in command. Romy's husband remains oblivious. He directs a play that looks remarkably like Serbian artist's Marina Abramovic's six hour long endurance piece Rhythm 0, a piece in which the artist completely ceded her autonomy as she invited the audience to do whatever they wished to her with 72 separate objects. The parallel is not lost on us as Samuel embeds himself more and more deeply into Romy's life. We follow her down to her rock bottom, addicted to the cessation of control, discovery and destruction. She almost loses it all, except by the grace of her assistant who hopes for a long overdue promotion and does want to take down a woman on top. It finishes with Samuel neutralized, sent off to Japan, and Romy orgasming with her husband, who has forgiven her.
After the phenomena of the Fifty Shades of Grey franchise, I had no interest in “Babygirl,” or any other film that deifies billionaires who do kink badly and abuse their power. However, I was invited by sexual educator and ForteFemme founder Midori to join her and a group of fellow sex educators, therapists and intimacy coaches, to watch and then discuss the film. We met on a Tuesday evening in January, nearly two weeks after the film’s December 25th premiere, and the theater was surprisingly (or maybe not considering the sheer amount of steamy screen time?) full.
It felt like a cautionary tale for puritanical American ideals. While acknowledging that many men and women in positions of power wish to turn off their brains and give up control, it also fed into the idea of the ideal cis-hetero marriage and how far you can fall when stepping out of these roles.
Then there is the treatment of kink. The mere notion of a safe word wasn't brought up until halfway through the film, Samuel’s indifferent mention spurring Midori to burst out with an incredulous “Now?!”
“Did producers come in and say, 'You must mention a safe word or we won't give you money.’? I think that they thought this would be how they could salvage this for the public.” Midori said, highlighting the misaligned sexuality.
“The movie conflates a healthy exchange of power with someone agreeing to be in a submissive role,” David Kahlili, founder and director of Rouse Relational Wellness thoughtfully interjected as we further discussed Samuel's threat and demand that all power be ceded to him. “Samuel made her say yes without conditions or limits. It's like a Fetlife rom-com,” Midori added. “It's like he learned kink on TikTok!”
We wondered, with Samuel's flat performance, if he was perhaps just a fantasy in Romy's head. Jo Zarate-Sanderlin, a licensed Marriage and Family therapist said of this that “many of us have fantasies that we don’t want to do. Some are terrible. Most people want to keep fantasies a fantasy.”
“There’s going to be so many guys watching this movie and thinking that’s exactly the way I need to be. Or maybe not.” Kahlili pondered.
“Babygirl” does not read as a film that empowers women. Romy relinquishes her power to a very masculine figure swimming in dubious consent, doubled with manipulation. Would the plot be interesting if these people weren't filthy rich? Kidman's portrayal of Romy shows vulnerability and strength, and the character’s journeys from a helpless woman to an empowered one, a favored Hollywood trope. While steamy and satisfying to see her get her happy ending, this was no thriller.
More an uneasy comedy of errors, this is a movie for people who are drawn to bodice ripper romances, not plausibility. Pulp, fictioned.
