2024 has been a good year for women on screen. Plenty of meaty, fully realized roles found their way to cinemas in the last twelve months, from Demi Moore in The Substance to Kate Winslet in Lee, Angelina Jolie as Maria Calls in Maria, Mikey Madison in the title role for Anora and many more.
Chief among them, for an actor who's had no issue landing roles this year (her IMDb has her at six for 2024 alone), is Nicole Kidman in Babygirl, written and directed by Halina Reijn (Bodies, Bodies, Bodies). Kidman is Romy, a high-powered CEO of a tech company in New York with a seemingly perfect life. She has a handsome (and age-appropriate) husband in Jacob (Antonio Banderas - more on him in a moment) and two teenage kids who are a bit more difficult to rein in than her employees and board members. She's a woman who spends every waking moment making decisions, and she does so with confidence.
When one of those employees brings the new crop of fresh-faced interns into Romy's office to meet the executive, she first meets Samuel (Harris Dickinson), and the two soon engaged in a weird and unexpected relationship that will threaten to undo everything Romy has worked so hard for.
Nothing about what Romy and Samuel do together is weird; far be it from me to sex shame, and Reijn's script has her lead actors having plenty of it. There is a thread throughout Babygirl that is so sex-positive it's practically daring us to be offended and therefore feel ashamed of our own shaming. What's weird about the connection between Romy and Samuel is that when all is said and done, it makes no sense.
The affair begins oddly, continues on oddly and ends with a whimper (as the film does), and through it all one would be forgiven for thinking again and again (as I did), "What does she see in him?" It seems a bridge too far to think that absolutely no one in this woman's elite circle could be the kind of man she's eager to submit to as she does to Samuel.
Dickinson does his best to make Samuel a charismatic force and convince us that Romy would risk it all for what he has to offer, but all of Kidman's pining and whining can't quite do the trick. Instead, the biggest and best surprise of the film is Banderas, who I didn't even know was in the cast until I started watching the film. His Jacob is as exasperated as he is desperate to understand what's going on with his wife, and every scene he's in (which is admittedly few) is elevated because of it.
I commend Heijn for her original script and her effort to flip the narrative on this all-too-common breakdown in a power dynamic. A high-powered male executive finding himself in the throes of an affair with a much-younger woman is not new, and Babygirl gives us something fresh as it investigates this type of relationship from a different angle. But in the end, she doesn't allow us enough of a look into Romy's background or emotional state to make her decisions make sense. Has she done this kind of thing before, or been tempted to? Does she blur ethical lines elsewhere in her personal or professional life?
As depicted on screen, Babygirl is a one-dimensional relationship drama hoping that its sex scenes (which are plenty, but not terribly racy) will carry the day, when we all know it's emotional connection that really makes the physical that much better.
Babygirl is now in theaters.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider supporting Third Coast Review’s arts and culture coverage by making a donation. Choose the amount that works best for you, and know how much we appreciate your support!