Babygirl: Film Review
Nicole Kidman won the Best Actress award at Venice for her performance in Babygirl and now I can fully appreciate why. She is fantastic!
In this erotic thriller, written and directed by Halina Reijn, Kidman plays high-powered CEO Romy Mathis, who is sexually unfulfilled in her marriage to her husband Jacob (Antonio Banderas). She is willing to risk it all when she meets a new intern, Samuel (Harris Dickinson), and they embark on a dominant/submissive sexual relationship.
Kidman is sensational in this fearless role. The sex scenes are focused on her and we see her orgasm on screen a lot. She does all of the heavy lifting on the erotic side of things and that is a huge responsibility. But there’s a lot more to Romy than those intimate scenes. She is a very complex person and I didn’t particularly like or understand her. Why is she so willing to throw her life away for this intern?! Romy is impulsive, irrational and reckless and seems to get a thrill out of potentially ruining her entire life. As if the danger of the affair makes it more enticing.
I’m not convinced Dickinson was the right choice for this part. I like him in other roles but he didn’t quite have the juice here. Of course, attraction is subjective but I couldn’t buy into the fact that Romy would throw her life and hot husband away and give all the control to this weird, charm-free nobody, especially when he comes on so strong in the beginning. Such audacity!
This brings me to my next criticism nicely. The film is not as sexy as I’d been led to believe. There are sexier movies out there, such as 2002’s Secretary, which I thought about a lot during Babygirl. Kidman works hard to sell the desire, pleasure and attraction but I didn’t feel it from Dickinson at all. It made me wonder if Samuel actually liked Romy or if he just enjoyed lording his power over her and telling this high-powered boss what to do. The power play is more interesting than the sex scenes. You’d assume Romy would have the power due to her position but it’s actually Samuel because she has everything to lose and he could ruin her life easily.
Kidman is brilliant and I fully support her getting awards and nominations for her performance but I wasn’t fully sold on Babygirl overall.
In cinemas from Friday 10th January
Rating: 4 out of 5.
