Review | The movie Babygirl, famous for its sex scenes, sucks without erotica

Only Nicole Kidman, known for her ice queen characters, who boldly throws herself into a different role, shines in Babygirl.

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Premiere: 10.01.2025.
Original name: Babygirl
Directed by: Halina Reijn
Screenplay: Halina Reijn
Starring: Nicole Kidman, Harris Dickinson, Sophie Wilde & Antonio Banderas
Length: 115 minutes
Age limit: K16

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Nicole Kidman was awarded Babygirl-film last September at the Venice Film Festival. There isn’t much else to praise about the erotic drama, which is praised for its bold sex scenes and turns gender roles on its head.

Best of 2022 Bodies Bodies Bodies – a Dutchman known for his horror comedies Halina Reijnin written and directed by Babygirl, in some places it reminds of the 1980s and 1990s Fatal Attraction – A dangerous relationship this Basic Instinct -sex thrillers.

However, Babygirl is not a thriller, but a drama, which, despite its numerous sex scenes, is a very clinical production. There is strangely little eroticism in the subjugation film.

Talking might help

In Babygirl, Nicole Kidman plays rich Romy, an influential CEO of a giant company whose life is seemingly perfect, in need of therapy. She has a loving husband (Antonio Banderas), two daughters, a demanding job, a wonderful place in New York and a vacation home in Connecticut.

The woman’s secret is that the other side of the couple, which has been married for almost 20 years, fails to satisfy Romya in bed.

The film begins with a scene where Kidman pretends to have an orgasm, after which she goes into the next room to watch daddy porn and masturbate.

Babygirl tries to comment, for example, on sex, submission games, marriage, power and betrayal from a woman’s point of view. The whole idea is based on one idea – a woman who commands others in her work does not know or is capable of telling her husband that it is not necessary to be only gentle in the bed room.

Partially successfully, Babygirl also tells about the uncertainty that a person living in a strict frame has to experience.

Loud without eroticism

Romy, played by Nicole Kidman, ends up cheating on her husband with the younger intern Samuel (Harris Dickinson) with. A woman sees Samuel taming a runaway dog ​​on the street. The scene makes it clear how a woman wants herself to be treated in the bed room.

Reijni’s script feels unfinished in almost every aspect. The relationship between the two protagonists, the family drama, the power relations and rules of the office environment remain just a scratch.

There are plenty of violent scenes and Kidman being treated like a dog, but Babygirl is not a sexy movie. In addition to the script, it is due to the peculiarly clinical operation and cinematography. The atmosphere and especially the chemistry between the actors are exhausting from a work that jumps from scene to scene without tension.

For example, which premiered last summer Challengers is a much sexier movie, even though it basically doesn’t contain a single sex scene.

Sheer modern Hollywood of the general public

Nicole Kidman plays a great role as a woman who wants to be subjugated, but the sex scenes in Babygirl are very tame. In the pictures, the bare buttocks of the two main actors are glimpsed. Just moaning and being on the floor of the quad is not daring. Demi Mooren The Substance – role, even the scene where Kidman’s face is injected with botox feels weak.

In addition, far too many of the twists and turns in the fascinating sexual relationship between the two main actors are introduced through montages.

Based on the reception of the world premiere in Venice, I imagined Babygirl to be at least a light version Michael Haneken The Piano Teacher -from the movie or something almost as daring as Julia Ducournau’n sickly Titanium.

Despite the Dutch director, Babygirl is pure 2024 Hollywood – like a smarter version Fifty Shades of Greysta without S/M image.

The film successfully makes it clear that there is nothing wrong with the sexual desires and fantasies of a woman forced into her role, and that a relationship with a younger man is not abuse. However, the ending locks the main character back into the cage in a strange way.

Kidman’s Romy does speak out loud about dark fantasies, but the film does not dare to dive deeper into the subject. A few softcore porn-like scenes are really not enough, because the film doesn’t even try to think about the underlying reasons of the subject.

Mechanical clinical entity

Babygirl seems to momentarily jump, like its role models, more towards the thriller side when Samuel arrives for a surprise visit to Romy’s holiday apartment. The woman gets excited by the feeling of danger and being subjugated, but suddenly draws a line with her family.

Just a moment before, Romy gets a kick out of the fact that you can be caught cheating at any time, but marriage is still everything. A boundary is a line drawn in the water. Babygirl’s script seems to forget everything seen a moment before in an infuriatingly stupid way towards the end.

An erotically psychological geek would quickly crave more eroticism as well as excitement. Babygirl is a strangely mechanical and clinical film, in which only Kidman, known for her ice queen characters, who boldly throws herself into a different role, shines.

Partly the same topic is treated much better, for example Catherine Breillat’n Last summerlast year’s remake Queen of Hearts – Dronningen – from a Danish film.

BABYGIRL

“The cozy Babygirl is just a surface, which doesn’t show enough even a shivering bare surface.”