Though it might not be the most macro-scale important issue facing us today, few topics generate the kind of instantly furious opinions that are let fly whenever discourse starts about age gap relationships. Into this ethical viper’s nest steps Babygirl, writer-director Halina Reijn’s follow-up to Gen-Z slasher/murder mystery Bodies Bodies Bodies, and another story tapped directly in to some very modern takes on sex, power dynamics, and the life one must present to the world in the social media, cameras everywhere age. The result is a fun and funny erotic thriller that effectively straddles the line between schlocky ‘90s throwback and 21st Century sensibilities.
Reijn’s most obvious twist on the classic formula is right at the front and centre in the form of Nicole Kidman. Taking on the traditionally male role of the older, richer, and more powerful partner as robotics firm CEO Romy Mathis, she’s a classic ‘woman who has it all’, aside from one key thing – sexual thrill. She finds it in the form of her much younger new intern Samuel (Harris Dickinson), who makes a swoon-worthy first impression by calming down an angry dog outside the offices before almost instantly becoming Romy’s new obsession, volatile and boundary-pushing and sexually and emotionally dominant.
There are some interesting explorations here of who exactly has the power – Samuel seems to make all the first moves but, at least at the beginning, Romy has the capacity to shut it down instantly and leave Samuel, and his ‘inappropriate’ behaviour, jobless out in the cold. Reijn’s script, though, is only concerned with this to an extent (Romy lets the situation get out of her hands hilariously fast), more interested in just having fun with the profoundly toxic and perverse dynamic this pair create. On a pure entertainment level, it’s a good move, sacrificing some story/thematic depth in favour of letting some great character work take centre stage.
Kidman and Dickinson are both really great, taking the self-destructiveness of each character on the page and running in funny, enigmatic directions with it. Kidman never plays Romy too far in any given moral direction, never ignorant of the implications of what she’s doing but also having enough fun to keep the guilt at bay for a while, while Dickinson folds layers of arrogance and danger into a wider vulnerability and maybe even some level of spectrum disorder. As Romy’s blandly pleasant cuckold husband Jacob, Antonio Banderas is rather wasted, but Babygirl always knows how to play to its strengths as a two-hander.
It’s a strength that carries over to the sex scenes, which make great use of the red hot chemistry between Kidman and Dickinson – sometimes just plain sexy but just as often squirmingly uncomfortable to be a part of (there’s even something a bit Peep Show about one particular sequence in a cheap hotel room). They play to Reijn’s strengths as a stylist too; where some bits of Babygirl can (like Bodies Bodies Bodies) feel a bit overdirected, with a really rather *insistent* score, her instincts in these moments are on much safer ground.
The final difference between Babygirl and its many obvious ‘80s and ‘90s inspiration makes itself known a bit later – it has a lot more love and empathy for its characters than any of those films did, seeking more to understand and laugh at/with them than actively punish them. The result is a final act that is a bit lo-fi and cobbled together, lacking the sort of heart-pumping panic of, say, Fatal Attraction or Basic Instinct, but replacing it with a welcome kindness that is both earnest and funny – a balance struck well by the film as a whole and perfectly by its two leads.
Jack Blackwell – Film Reviews 