Nicole Kidman’s character in “Babygirl” has all of it. Virtually actually.
She’s the CEO of a powerhouse tech firm, has two adoring teenagers and her dutiful partner appears to be like suspiciously like Antonio Banderas.
Her descent into lust, the type we not often see in trendy motion pictures, is the center of this erotic drama. It’s a disgrace that the story caps in a cowardly means that feels all too predictable given Twenty first-century mores.
Kidman’s Romy Mathis oversees an organization embracing the sting of our high-tech world. In between digital improvements, she carves out time to satisfy interns desperate to jump-start their careers.
That features Samuel (Harris Dickinson), a lanky gent who appears unimpressed by the corporate’s stature … or its chief. He makes a beeline for Romy, forcing a mentorship program together with her regardless of her brutal schedule.
She will’t appear to shake his skilled advances regardless of the facility imbalance. He has different intentions past profession development, and Romy has few defenses towards them.
Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge.
We’ll spare the small print, however he coaxes her right into a sado-masochistic relationship that threatens every little thing she holds expensive. That features her doting husband Jacob (Banderas), clueless that Romy isn’t glad with their lovemaking.
That’s placing it mildly.
“Babygirl” provides handsomely choreographed intercourse scenes that depart little to the creativeness. Author/director Halina Reijn (the criminally overrated “Our bodies Our bodies Our bodies”) has little time for psychological nuance. That is about energy, from a CEO who lords over her minions to the lover who brings mentioned CEO to her knees…. After which forces her to lap up milk from a saucer.
That’s one of many few bits that may be revealed.
Romy hungers for one thing harmful and unique. She finds simply that in her randy intern, ignoring how the affair might destroy many years of exhausting work, love and loyalty.
That’s definitely sufficient to maintain our curiosity. It additionally suggests fireworks will deploy within the third act, in some form or type.
The decision, alas, isn’t simply devoid of element or emotional resonance. It’s regrettably woke, though different earlier subplots are something however. One in every of Romy’s underlings proves duplicitous in ways in which skewer feminist groupthink.
It’s surprising and refreshing. Actual life is never woke, which is why the cultural scourge stained movie-making over the previous decade.
‘Babygirl’ director says the movie is her reply to Nicole Kidman’s ‘Eyes Extensive Shut’ position https://t.co/n9jtmJCtCM
— Leisure Weekly (@EW) December 23, 2024
“Babygirl” options one other chic flip from Kidman, though the screenplay’s lack of nuance undercuts her efficiency. The narrative hints at her troubled previous however it’s simply lip service. Different psychological components are equally skinny.
This type of story doesn’t simply want a strong ending, an exclamation level to the narrative foreplay, it calls for it. Reijn’s third act doesn’t come shut. Affairs depart everlasting scars. Marriages are by no means the identical, even people who get better in some style.
“Babygirl’s” decision proves glib, malnourished and deeply manipulative. Kidman’s bravura flip, and a romance that can tantalize quite a lot of viewers, deserve higher.
HiT or Miss: “Babygirl” provides steamy interludes and one other superlative flip from Nicole Kidman, however the decision short-changes the movie’s finest efforts.