Babygirl (2024)

Disclaimer: I saw this on Sunday January 5th, 2025, so technically it's not the next week yet. However, I preferred the earlier 9:30 am showtime on offer for today, as opposed to the 10am showtime tomorrow (1/6/24). Tomorrow is my last day off before heading back to work, so I rather stay home and chill.

So for the first full week of 2025, I watch yet another movie that released in 2024, Babygirl (dir: Halina Reijn). Once again I watched this movie at the Cinemark 16 XD theater in Victorville, CA. It was an early showtime, 9:30am to be specific and there were two couples in the auditorium with me, including an older couple that sat close by and may have felt awkward as soon as the movie started. For me, the most notable things I saw during the previews was a proper trailer to Wolfman (dir: Leigh Whannell), One of Them Days (dir: Lawrence Lamont, 2025), Death of a Unicorn (dir: Alex Scharman, 2025), and The Brutalist (dir: Brady Corbet, 2024). I already intend on watching Wolfman for next week, but One of Them Days looks like it can be fun time and I would like to see more Keke Palmer post Nope (dir: Jordan Peele, 2022). Death of a Unicorn looks to be pretty bonkers, so I'll make sure to look out for it. The Brutalist apparently has recently released and although it seems like "Oscar Bait", the visuals look stunning; I suppose that's why the trailer makes a point to note that the movie was shot on VistaVision cameras. Before I move to discuss Babygirl, let me know if I should continue including the director when mentioning a movie moving forward. I feel that it adds clutter, plus it brings me back to my college days when I absolutely used that method of citation to inflate my word count. Anyways Babygirl.

To begin with, I did not know a thing about Babygirl aside from the short synopsis when choosing what to see at the theater. From that brief read, I pictured something like an erotic thriller, which considering that it stars Nicole Kidman is not a far off assumption. Remember that Kidman stared in one of the last erotic thrillers before the genre seemed to peter out at the turn of the millennium, Eyes Wide Shut (dir: Stanley Kurbrick, 1999), but I digress. The basic plot of this movie is that Nicole Kidman plays a powerful woman named Romy that is CEO of a company that develops and sells robots to automate warehouse operations; if this movie was Over the Hedge (dir: Tim Johnson & Karey Kirkpatrick, 2006), then those character details would immediately flag her as a villain. Anyway, Romy begins a steamy affair with a new much younger intern named Samuel, played by Harris Dickinson. Over the course of the movie, we learn that despite having a highly successful career and a loving family, complete with a theater director husband played by Antonio Banderas, Romy is willing to risk an affair with her intern not necessarily because the age dynamic makes her feel young, but because she is fulfilling a certain sexual desire with this intern that her husband has never given her. Basically Romy, to put it bluntly, is a mommy that wishes to be dommy'ed rather than the other way around. It is a subversive role for Kidman to take. Maybe it's just me, but her screen presence in her other works gave off a confidently commanding and intimidating aura (yes even in the AMC commercial), so to see that kinda flipped on its head is interesting to see.

As for the things in this movie that I enjoy, I'd like to discuss the score and soundtrack. This is not a full commendation as I do have issues that I will get into later, but this movie does have a certain leitmotif (or recurring musical theme) playing throughout Romy and Samuel's affair that I feel does a good job at helping the audience prepare to match the movie's freak so to speak. Moreover, the diegetic music (sound that exists in the film's world) that plays later in the movie when Romy and Samuel rendezvous at a club really enhances the sequence for me. Honestly that whole sequence with the music, lighting, and shot composition stuck out the most to me compared to the rest of the film. It gave me personally a feeling of anxiety, though I feel that it was intentional to get in line with Romy's headspace at the point in the movie. Another thing I'll give this movie credit for is that, despite seeming to classify itself an an erotic thriller, it does not have the tropes or plot points that I typically associate with the genre. I can't really get into the full specifics of that without going into full spoiler territory, but know that thankfully this isn't some Reagan era shit like Fatal Attraction (dir: Adrian Lyne, 1987) or Jagged Edge (dir: Richard Marquand, 1985) that often made a point to severely punish those involved in extra marital affairs, usually the comically hysterical "other woman". Despite the kinks that Romy wants to explore (not kink-shaming btw), and some character choices, the movie is generally grounded.

After writing those last few sentences, I'm reminded of Steven Soderbergh's 1989 indie flick, Sex, Lies, and Videotape. Even though Sex, Lies isn't really an erotic thriller it still echos similar plot details, as it too features a married woman living a seemingly perfect life beginning to find a connection with another man, namely due to an unusual kink at play. I quite enjoyed Sex, Lies as its grounded nature lent itself to a more subtle, yet engaging eroticism. That being said, I wanted to like Babygirl more as it does kind of remind me of Sex, Lies, but there are quite a few things that hold it back for me. For one, I get the feeling that the movie really meanders and stretches out the affair plot. I reminded of Rocky 4 (dir: Sylvester Stallone, 1985) with how often Babygirl cuts to music montages or set pieces. Speaking of which, there are some stringy orchestral pieces that play at points that, in my opinion do not really fit this movie. It's giving me Star Wars Prequel Trilogy vibes with how these orchestral pieces are popping off, while visually we are just looking at Nicole Kidman walk around her bedroom. I understand a common complaint is that movies should do more showing than telling, i.e. don't use dialogue to spell everything out and allow the audience to understand characters and themes from the visual medium. Frankly however, this movie shows and tells without saying much either way. Another thing that stuck out to me is that Sophie Wilde plays Romy's young righthand assistant, Esme, and I feel that she is very underutilized. I really enjoyed seeing Wilde in Talk to Me (dir: Danny & Michael Philippou, 2022), so it's disappointing to see her character in this movie seem to have a conflict that could be interesting, only for it to be resolved in what seems like under 10 minutes of the movie's runtime. I feel statements like "communication would've solved these people's problems" are kinda weak petty complaints akin to thinking plotholes automatically make a movie bad. However, given the way the movie concludes, coupled with my aforementioned problems, let's just say that statement was on my mind as the credits rolled.

With that being said, I'm gonna say Babygirl is Just a Movie. It's runtime is just shy of under 2 hours and it certainly feels like it. Give it a watch if you're interested though, don't let my dumbass stop you. Next post will likely be about Wolfman, and I'm pretty excited for that. Enjoy your day.