Babygirl

Babygirl is the latest from writer and director Halina Reijn, where Romy (Nicole Kidman) and Jacob (Antonio Banderas) are a super successful couple in New York. She’s the CEO of an automation company; he’s a theatre director.

In the opening scenes we establish that Romy can’t orgasm with her husband, so after he’s asleep, she disappears into another room to take care of herself. This seems like their normal routine.

We’re then introduced to Samuel (Harris Dickson), who seems to have a ‘sense’ with people and animals, an ability to connect with them. When Romy is walking to work, a dog attacks someone and when it appears to turn on Romy, Samuel steps in to bring the dog to heel and control it. There’s something in the domination of this encounter that has Romy’s interest.

It then transpires that Samuel is one of the new interns at Romy’s company. They’re given a tour of the office which includes a quick introduction to Romy. We get the impression that this is a formality, that Romy isn’t part of the internship programme, because when Samuel chooses her as his mentor, she’s confused as to how and why her name was on the list.

So begins their meetings, in a conveniently sound-proofed room. The rest of the film is a game of chance, risk, and sexual discovery for them. 50 Shades this is not, it’s two people learning how to act on their desires from different perspectives.

The film takes the power dynamic of CEO and intern and flips it, Samuel is the pursuer to Romy’s fantasy. He wears oversized suits, big jackets, and enormous hoodies. Anything to try and make his tall height and handsome features less distinctive and more ordinary, and this ability to tap into his senses and connect with people more extortionary. Romy is confident, powerful, sleek, elegant, and quite open about what it takes to be in her position, including getting plastic surgery.

When this film came out, there was a mixture of reviews, some praising it, some confused, others thought it was overrated for how many awards it won, with a common tongue in cheek comment on how any character played by Antonio Banderas wouldn’t know how to satisfy a woman. But I think this cuts down to the point.

Romy is a female CEO – so already she is in a high-pressured position which come with certain expectations. Her backstory alludes to a more conservative and difficult upbringing. She’s a mother of two children, Isabel (Esther McGregor) and Nora (Vaughan Reilly). She makes their lunches in the morning, she cooks for the whole family, she organises the birthday parties, she even writes little notes on heart shaped paper for her girls and slips them into their bags. She must be everything to everyone and suppress her fear that her less than conservative desires won’t fit into the world she’s worked so hard to create – which includes weekly therapy with an EDMR machine.

So it’s not that her husband is incapable, it’s that Romy is afraid of letting him in, of losing this image and life she’s created for her and her family. It’s only when she meets Samuel that she finds a way to explore these desires. He’s an intern of seemingly little consequence who has what she needs.

I like the pairing, the two actors have strong sexual chemistry, made more interesting by their realism. Samuel is too young and immature to know what he’s doing, despite his frequent assurances to the contrary. While Romy knows what she wants, just not how to achieve it, trying to turn the fantasies she’s created in her mind and seen in porn into reality, so they’re both fumbling in the dark. They even have a safe word, though they never venture remotely close to anything that might need it, but it gives it a more realistic view of two people new to this type of sex, helped by the many awkward and funny moments, ‘I don’t know what I’m doing’, ‘Is that what you want me to say’, and lots of giggling at the start. It does also lead to some weirder moments with milk, fingers in mouths and so on, less said the better.

So, after a torrid affair involving late night rendezvous at night clubs, and extravagant hotels rooms, the ramifications are still real; they’re just handled differently. At work, rather than submit to the intimidation tactics of her male colleagues who suspects the affair, she’s forced into a new strategy by her PA Esme (Sophie Wilde) in a way that benefits them both. Esme doesn’t want Romy to lose her role as there are so few women in these positions of power. 

They’re two important moments; one goes towards reaffirming her position of authority in work for after watching her being dominated for most of the film. A slightly confused reminder that she’s still a powerful and intelligent businesswoman. The other gives us closure on the original problem, how to bring her needs and desires into her marriage.

Where it seriously falters are the moments of extremes. I think it pushes it one step too far in places, looking at that milk scene, where it tries to be sexual without being explicit. I do also think there’s a great deal relying on the audience to suspend our disbelief at the numerous coincidences, Samuel’s role as an ‘intern’ and how it doesn’t fit in this film beyond Romy’s fantasy.

The film also tries to subvert any questions and concerns we may have about a CEO’s relationship with an intern, by having early conversations around consent and putting Samuel in the role of pursuer and viewing Romy through a sympathetic lens to make it less objectionable. But this feels like an afterthought, and the relationship falls into a, will they, won’t they? Despite the fact Samuel lives only as an extension of Romy’s fantasy, as besides being a bar tender and dating her PA, he has a weird and cobbled together backstory. He’s eventually being brushed aside, so we can cast our eyes back on the main issue – how does the affair sit with Romy’s marriage.

It’s a credit to Halina Reijin to try push and mould a conventional story into something different, something more adventurous. She’s created a film that’s beautifully shot and well-paced, coming in at just under two hours. She’s got two leads I was totally engrossed with for their sexual chemistry, and I think the film’s strength is as an expression of liberation for a woman forcibly pigeonholed into her role in a corporate environment – despite the contrasting title.

Where it seriously struggles are the confused themes and motifs, the extremes within the ‘sex scenes’, the constant need for us to suspend our disbelief, and the overly coincidental story around Samuel, which blurs fantasy with reality in a turn of one too many questions and contradictions in its introduction and conclusion. It’s a good cast as I’m not sure any of it would have worked with a different troupe given the fine tightrope to walk on in this underdeveloped but well-intentioned story.

 Overall 2.5/5

Babygirl is available on Prime Video if you’re subscribed.