When Romy, the high-powered executive played by Nicole Kidman, starts cheating on her urbane theater director husband (Antonio Banderas), it’s not because their sex life has diminished. As the opening scene explicitly demonstrates, there’s still significant heat between them. But when he goes to sleep, Romy sneaks out of the room to finish, alone, what she clearly couldn’t achieve with him.
When Romy meets Samuel (Harris Dickinson), an impertinent intern at her company who can intuit more about her than she intends to share — and who’s happy to take control — it’s only a matter of time before they find themselves in a seedy hotel together. They wrestle, literally and figuratively, over a twisty power dynamic. Romy’s age and position give her an advantage, but as Samuel reminds her, he could ruin her life with one phone call.
By some definitions, the film is an erotic thriller, but writer-director Halina Reijn (BODIES BODIES BODIES) is more interested in exploring complex emotional truths than playing by genre rules. BABYGIRL may evoke some comparisons to Steven Shainberg’s SECRETARY, but surface similarities aside, it’s something entirely its own. (Synopsis from the Toronto International Film Festival 2024)
“Without Kidman in a fearless turn and Dickinson there to pivot her to the edge, BABYGIRL wouldn’t work as smashingly as it does. This is a sexy, darkly funny, and bold piece of work. Don’t sleep on it.” —Ryan Lattanzio, IndieWire “[Director Halina] Reijn’s magic trick with BABYGIRL is her willingness to extend a huge amount of empathy to every character entangled in the affair. No one is culpable, instead they are allowed to discover how their desires extend past the pre-packaged containers of their lives. There is a radically charged focus to each of Romy and Samuel’s sexual encounters, with Kidman’s face — and the self-disgust, admittance, and revelation therein — held in unbroken closeups.” —Anna McKibbin, A.V. Club “This sexy and biting romp pokes fun at its audience and, at the same time, makes a compelling statement about the gendered expectations of celebrity culture and the star image…. Reijn’s punchy cinematic style and the clever yet mean-spirited critique of gender and power subvert a trite set-up into a compelling surprise of a movie.” —Maggie Roberts, Film Threat “A shrewdly honest and entertaining movie about a flagrantly ‘wrong’ sadomasochistic affair…and that’s rooted in the fearless performance of Kidman…. The movie’s ambition isn’t just to feed the thriller engine. It’s to capture something genuine about women’s erotic experience in the age of control.” —Owen Gleiberman, Variety
