Film Review: Babygirl

Nicole Kidman, in her latest outing as a sexy, wealthy matriarch with a dark side (her MO of late), is Romy, a married mother of two who owns a tech company. The metaphor is very clear here; robotic woman makes robots, although it is refreshing for a female boss in a film to run something other than a cosmetics company or a glossy magazine. She’s clearly not fully satisfied in the bedroom, which I find hard to believe when her husband is played by the incredibly sensuous Antonio Banderas, but perhaps that’s the point; just because you’re hot doesn’t mean you’re cutting the mustard between the sheets.

The film opens with the pair having sex, Romy seemingly enjoying herself, but then she hops off her husband, scurries into another room, opens her laptop to reveal a porno and pleasures herself. Kudos to Kidman for doing this, I would imagine it’s harder and more exposing to portray masturbation than a full-blown sex scene. She looks fantastic throughout the film, whether clothed or not, but I am loathed to say she is ‘brave’ in bearing all because wouldn’t we all if we looked like that. Harris Dickinson gives a nuanced and instinctive performance as the intern, Samuel, who has a talent for taming wild dogs. He makes going up against heavy industry hitters such as Kidman and Banderas seem effortless. The dancing scene to George Michael’s ‘Father Figure’ tells us more about the characters than perhaps words can.

I went in with the expectation that we were going to see a groundbreaking, original exploration of female desire. Don’t get me wrong; it’s sexy, it’s sultry, it’s intense and enjoyable but there is nothing here that we haven’t seen before. If you boil the plot down, it is a woman having a mid-life crisis and sleeping with a junior employee. It isn’t new information that some women secretly like being dominated, especially if you’re a woman who has made it to the peak of your career with no one to tell you what to do. If this film were made 10 years ago it might have been more outrageous, but this is just Fifty Shades with better acting.

The soundtrack is immense and creates great tension in the scenes between Kidman and Dickinson, especially the thumping beat in the club scene where Romy throws off her previous shyness when dancing, along with her blouse, and let’s rip, jumping along to the hedonistic tempo surrounded by wasted twenty-somethings. The sound effects heighten the atmosphere throughout, we can hear every kiss, every breath, every rustle of clothing. 

The film makes you question gender stereotypes in that, if Romy were a man who had slept with his secretary, this would not be the same film. His teenage daughter would not comfort him saying “It’s ok dad, it’s ok” and his wife would not take him back and basically acquiesce to his kinky desires. If the lead was a man, he would lose his job, his home and his family and the moral of the story would be, ‘Keep it in your pants, you corporate dickhead’. Slightly double standards that Romy gets to keep her swanky office, go back to her beautiful home and finally have the sex she wanted with her loving husband. I think if she’d had a frank conversation with him and maybe suggested a trip to Ann Summers all would have been well.   

The best line, between Romy and a senior male employee who learns of the affair and propositions her in her office one afternoon, is saved for last. With thinly veiled disgust, she retorts, “If I want to be humiliated, I’ll pay for it.” A mic drop moment if ever there was one. 

A perfectly pleasurable trip with a great score and Kidman on top form, as you would expect, but the overall feeling is that of style over substance. 

Babygirl is currently showing at Broadway and Savoy cinemas.