‘Babygirl’ Review: Halina Reijn’s Erotic Drama Lacks Heat
While Nicole Kidman and Antonio Banderas give their all in Babygirl, the film is hindered by a severe lack of chemistry with its lead star and a profoundly miscast Harris Dickinson.
Anyone knows that the erotic drama (or thriller) only works if the chemistry between its lead stars is tantalizingly palpable. Whether it’s the fiery duo of Michael Douglas/Glenn Close or Douglas/Sharon Stone in Adrian Lyne’s Fatal Attraction and Paul Verhoeven’s Basic Instinct, or an intensely hot pairing whose sexual energy pops off the screen by way of Glen Powell and Adria Arjona in Richard Linklater’s Hit Man, the sexual tension that so many film enthusiasts long for can only be attained if your actors know what to do with the material they’re working with.
Nicole Kidman is no stranger to this sub-genre of filmmaking that has sadly been lost in this sexless era of movies we live in today. Starring in Stanley Kubrick’s controversial Eyes Wide Shut may be the best example one can give because it is one of Kidman’s most-known roles. And she’s always been an actor at the forefront of changing how audiences view her changing eras through how she accepts her now-aging body. Eyes Wide Shut saw audiences challenged for the first time in their perception of Kidman as an actor/star. Now, Halina Reijn’s Babygirl asserts itself as the first film in the next stage of her career.
In that regard, Kidman more than succeeds in giving life to Romy Mathis, the CEO of an automation company, who is implied to be quite powerful and one of the few female CEOs who successfully climbed the top of the ladder. She lives a relatively stable life with her husband, Jacob (Antonio Banderas), and children, Isabel (Esther McGregor) and Nora (Vaughan Reilly). Reijn immediately destabilizes by having Romy moaning over the A24 logo and subsequent title cards before its first shot of Kidman bare-naked, about to experience coital satisfaction with Jacob. The two are introduced by having a seemingly stable, fulfilling, and sexually active life.
Director Halina Reijn (center) and star Nicole Kidman
But Romy isn’t satisfied by the sexual acts she performs with her husband, as illustrated in the following scene where she needs to further arouse by watching porn. That part alone creates the impression that their marriage appears stable on the surface but has fractures that the two have avoided discussing. Romy is too busy working (as we see throughout the film: she is always on her phone, all the time), while Jacob locks himself in a theater, knee-deep into final preparations for an upcoming play. It’s almost as if they don’t want to confront themselves and hope that their marriage will be far more rewarding than it is now, with their only saving grace being the happiness that their children currently experience as they mature.
This type of dynamic is interesting but never fully explored enough in the film’s 114-minute runtime. Rather, Reijn devotes most of her focus to the burgeoning relationship between Romy and intern Samuel (Harris Dickinson), whom she meets on the street after he saves her from almost being attacked by a dog. At that time, she did not know Samuel would be one of her interns, but he immediately fascinates her as soon as he steps foot in her office. The two begin to exchange sensual looks – and eventually words – which leads to a romantic affair, unbeknownst to Jacob.
Of course, such an age-old tale like this doesn’t reinvent the wheel (even if Jasper Wolf’s cinematography compels to make it look different than most modern erotic dramas), which is why this movie can only work if both leads offer some form of emotional – or decidedly psychosexual – connection in front of the camera. And while Kidman certainly gives her all (a well-deserved Golden Globe nomination in this critic’s book), one can’t say the same for the flat, distanced notes of Harris Dickinson, whose screen presence has sadly not reached the highs he gave since Ruben Östlund’s Triangle of Sadness in 2022.
Perhaps he hasn’t been directed in a way that fully exploits his talents. Perhaps he doesn’t have it. Or perhaps he hasn’t been picking out roles that know his capabilities. Either way, he’s profoundly miscast as Samuel, a man who appears to be infatuated by Romy (as much as she’s infatuated by him) and yet can never depict this lust convincingly, either through implicit – or explicit – acts of sexual adoration. He seems so distanced from the wavelength Kidman is in, which makes their relationship fall flat as soon as they meet. In fact, their only moment of inspiration occurs when Reijn needle-drops George Michael’s “Father Figure” during a montage sequence, only because this song gives the scene a sense of intriguing rhythm and not because of Dickinson’s acting.
Another scene that looked interesting enough was set in a nightclub. However, its strobing power is far too intense (the use of flashing lights in film should be outlawed, and I’m not even joking, especially after having sat through flicker films during experimental cinema classes at University) for us to remotely see anything going on. But it also doesn’t help that Reijn’s script is nothing but a series of repetitions, from scenes where Romy tells Samuel they can’t do this to a potential break up, reconciliation, break-up, and a potential romantic triangle between Romy, Samuel, and her assistant, Esme (Sophie Wilde). It’s almost as if Reijn doesn’t truly know what she wants to say about her erotic story or tell a half-baked study of power dynamics through the figure of an influential CEO with insatiable desires.
The ‘power dynamic’ throughline occurs when Reijn focuses on the Romy/Esme arc. However, tit’s far too brief since the film spends much time on a scattershot narrative with no clear-cut goal to make any discernible impact on the audience. This leaves us with only scenes of intense sexual passion to at least see a potential connection between Romy and Samuel, but Reijn doesn’t know where to position her camera in scenes where a gaze is at its most intense or when bodies are in motion. Such an electrical language creates the sexual tension that many see as liberating but is nowhere found in any of Babygirl’s more erotic moments.
It's only when Jacob (predictably) finds out of Romy’s affair that the movie becomes far more interesting, with Banderas making the most out of his limited screentime, particularly in a scene of pure emotional devastation. How does it feel when the woman you have loved all of your life and spent so many intimate moments with doesn’t even feel anything towards you? When Jacob eventually asks himself this question, the results are utterly tragic. Unfortunately, this isn’t Reijn’s focus, and what she ultimately depicts within this “forbidden” relationship borders on tedious since Kidman and Dickinson are completely incompatible on screen.
And as loud as Babygirl’s sound design is, mainly when it aurally represents Romy’s latent desires, it isn’t enough for us to connect on a cellular level to the character’s journey, whether on an emotional or erotic level. Reijn is a terrific filmmaker, as she boldly showcased in 2019’s Instinct and 2022’s incredible Bodies Bodies Bodies. She certainly knows how to direct veterans like Kidman and Banderas but can’t bring to muster up the same feelings with Dickinson’s Samuel, whose distanced screen presence considerably dampens the film’s scattershot narrative. A seasoned up-and-coming talent (George MacKay, for example) could’ve done something truly spectacular with Samuel and perhaps salvage Reijn’s movie. Sadly, Babygirl may only be remembered as the filmmaker’s first (and hopefully last) misfire.