As a fan of the stunning Nicole Kidman I was embarrassed to watch her doing a sexual-bondage film, and that too one where the man of her fantasies is much younger and way too aggressive and cocky.
Harris Dickinson plays Kidman’s intern. A young actor of considerable charm, I liked him better in Scrapper, where he played an absentee father trying to make up for lost time with his daughter simply because he was more likable there.
This guy in Babygirl is incontestably despicable. He is a self-obsessed millennial and a control freak. Control is, in fact, the key to the passions he ignites in Romy Mathis(Kidman), his uptight boss who desperately needs liberating sex.
The opening act itself tells us all we need to know about Romi’s mounting frustrations. Romi has been faking it with her husband, Jacob, for years. It is interesting and ironic that the husband is played by one-time super-stud Antonio Banderas. Dutch Director Halina Reijn swaps decorum for a self-aware smuttiness, unleashing the kind of sexual passion on screen that most purists would find deeply offensive.
But here is the thing: Babygirl (the intern addresses his boss Romi by that name only once during one of their endless sex playacting) is not worried about crossing the line. The logic here is simple: how do you make a film on crossing the line without crossing it yourself? Director Halina Reijm and her lead, Nicole Kidman, get together to create an orgasmic, safe home.
I don’t think this film would have been possible for Ms. Kidman if the director had not been a woman.
Paradoxically, although two women collaborate on this, it is the male gaze that is applied to the disturbing love-making sequences. This is not the first time we see a woman breaking her family code to have an extra-marital affair. But the treatment of the forbidden passion is unique.
Babygirl takes Nicole Kidman into a territory she has never been into before. It is wild in its boundary-crossing ambitions and yet able to restrain the visuals.
Love or hate it, Babygirl cannot leave the audience unmoved.
