Sex is no longer absent in movies and has made its return, and what better way to do it than with a bang? 2024 has been a great year for many movies thanks to interesting and steamy movies like, Rose Glass’s neo-noir thriller Love Lies Bleeding, Luca Guadagnino’s love triangle movies Challengers, Sean Baker’s comedy about sex workers Anora, and last but not least, again, Halina Reijn’s May December relationship, Babygirl.
The movie Babygirl directed and written by the film director of Bodies Bodies Bodies, Reijn, is making waves after its premiere screening at the Venice Film Festival in which Nicole Kidman won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress for her role as the leading actress in the movie. In bold films and series like Eyes Wide Shut, The Paperboy, and Big Little Lies, Nicole Kidman has always played seeking parts without the steady figure of a millionaire actress and AMC’s promoter, taking the risk to get down to sex and danger.
But in Babygirl, even the most sexual scene or contact is elevated rather than lost in sex which places contentment in that scene even when it is one of the seediest scenes. At first glance, this is her typical lifetime in film, plunging into her nimbly spoiled internship: high-voltage sexuality results from overactive executives. One would begin to predict the developments in the last moments of the film, where the intern should be, and how everything will resolve around her.
In a dress rehearsal, Harris Dickinson plays curl ‘handful’ rather than ‘babe’, and Arcadia’s iconic role models were Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman and Antonio Banderas in Desperado. Riley Reilly’s Romy displaces their foldable chair in an army green crevice, vinyl tights that hold her skin taut, in a push-up bra squeezing her mounds over her mother’s midriff, “almost half a hemisphere”. Smooching her manicured sun burnt skin, is Banderas, showing unfiltered love when she should not be, the devoted husband in this 90s love affair. Rather than soothing martini Charlotte in silk lounge clothes, Romy lights an incense stick for an Australian perfume bottle in a brown skirt suit.
Catchy, a bit over the top but the imperceptible effect of this explosive sentiment was waiting there all along. Moving away from the classic physically attractive characters of the book seems to overtake the plot and evoke a feeling that’s hard to describe. Instead of combining love or affection with it, the luxurious pounds seem to put a greater contrast to Romy’s matronly curves, thoughts, and deep amicable voice. Dickinson wants to annoy Mikkelsen to the point where he cannot hear the bored and matter-of-fact voices she speaks in. So when Banderas declares, “Attention at work”, that is what a bad girlfriend feels like in his hands.
Harris’ character Samuel is insidious because as a new adult, he still embodies the potential of self-determination, standing in adult shoes. The more possibilities you have, the more responsibility and, I will dare to say, a perception of feminine stereotypical hyping up. Samuel sees the world not through comforting and heartwarming pities of a vice versa ‘horny girl’ but instead in a dimension with voids. So does Reijn dressed in a black leather corset and knee-high chunk boots, neck decorated with chains, colorful patterns behind her, more attention gracing the ferry building. The feminine narrative is being destroyed leaving behind nothing of the quintessential features of femininity behind it.
From the start, he realizes that Romy has not yet had the chance to experience submission in her life. Both harsh and gentle, Samuel is willing to become her master, hoping that she would eat from the floor of a hotel room or open a carton of milk just because he ordered her to. Such fetish, about which many precious male executives, especially within BDSM communities, can be easily stereotyped, is Romy’s. Reversing the gender roles in this May-December dom-sub romance in stark contrast to the office set, for example, BDSM fueled romantic dramedy The Secretary directed by Steven Shainberg– certainly gives this story a delightfully disruptive thrust.
It is hard to argue about the faults of Romy and Samuel’s relationship because the skills of Nicole Kidman and Harris are overwhelming. Yet, it is a romance that may cause discomfort to the audience the interrelationships of the two people, their age, the fact that gender roles are violated, and even the kink aspects of their sex. This relationship is deeply fucked up even before Romy suggests that their safe word be Jacob, her husband’s name. And yet, the way paints this works also towards a lusty and liberating message that sex should be about brutal emotional honesty and exploration.
BDSM is rather poorly represented by the media, mostly, because it is seen as somehow abusive, or as bullying. Someone like Reijn and her cast has a version of Dom’s sex where consent is both essential and fun. In his naughty voice, Samuel whispers ‘commands’ that Romy should perform. When that happens Romy could shy or petulantly refuse and Samuel would want her to explain why. This is not canceling, this is talking. More interesting, the type of talking weird and fun that she is unable to initiate with her cute husband.
Wow. What a childish fantasy! Not the ‘zipless fucks’ envisioned by Erica Jong or fantasized in erotic thrillers of the 90s, Babygirl brings these strategies of awkward talk and fumbling foreplay not only to situate their sexual fantasy in a believable context, and she argues, because there is a pleasure to witnessing the construction of fantasy.
In The Paperboy, as in her latest film, Nicole Kidman has attracted attention for several graphic sex scenes, it does not come as a surprise that some will also accuse her of being over the top in this film. This said Romy holds power that few women in her position will ever have, but there is also something almost explicitly discomfiting about watching her surrender that power to some necktie-wearing dude. She must manage these relationships along with maintaining a job, a husband, and their two daughters, so one cannot hybridize the relationship at any level without criticism. But throughout these scenes, Kidman gives a distinctive portrayal of a woman who in so many ways is so beautifully human that one can’t help but love her.
Though it is apparent that she is engaging in “bad choices,” there might be a sense of relief in seeing someone willing to take those chances. Throughout the film, and knowing the truth of Romy’s character, you may find yourself more audacious towards being authentic and embracing the highs and lows of Babygirl’s life.
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