Don’t worry, there aren’t any Justin Timberlake jump scares here. I firmly denounce his bringing sexy back from wherever it went in 2006 but I do wonder whether Halina Reijn’s 2024 film Babygirl might have brought sexy back to cinema.
After having all recently watched Rivals and mutually lusted after Aidan Turner’s mustache, my friends and I delighted at how sex finally felt sexy on screen again but then despaired at how it felt as if cinema had lost the ability to artfully explore and present the subject of sex.
Then the Babygirl trailer started doing the rounds and piqued our interest. Harrison Dickenson calling Nicole Kidman a good girl? Yeah, alright, I'll bite.
Kidman plays Romy, a high-powered CEO of a robotics automation company in New York City who fakes orgasms with her husband Jacob (Antonio Banderas) but runs off to the spare room to watch porn and finish by herself. When Romy isn’t secretly watching porn, she’s mother to two insufferably written Gen Z teens and juggles homelife and being a corporate baddie like a pro.
Upon meeting her new batch of interns, she comes across Samuel (Dickenson), a cocksure young man who also happened to stop her getting mauled to death outside of the office by an out of control Alsatian. Go off, symbolism.
The two begin an affair where the lines of power are blurred and Romy’s long since repressed desire to be sexually dominated gives way for intense physical and emotional vulnerability.
The sexually unsatisfied wife is nothing new but it is a little refreshing to see her in the context of kink and Babygirl does its best to handle the subject with a tone of maturity that doesn’t feel as gratuitous as one might fear.
The film spends less time exploring the specific acts that constitute a dominant-submissive relationship and instead asks us to question how we feel about female sexual desire when it falls outside of what we deem empowering; what does it mean when a woman's sexual fantasy looks like a scene straight out of the male-gaze?
The answer is nuanced and handled with a curious directorial eye. Each character's motivations are multilayered and complex, and this is what makes Babygirl a more interesting story than just the kink-movie its hype might suggest.
While Romy and Samuel's chemistry and instincts are the driving force behind the dom/sub dynamic between them, they're still two normal humans with emotions beyond super-fucking-horny.
Romy wants to be owned in a way that means the burden of choice is taken away from her. She wants Samuel to tell her exactly what to do so that she can obey him and Samuel wants to please her, to see her give over control and give him her sexual obedience, and so he takes on the role of dominant.
The power play dynamics here should be straightforward when we consider their basic wants but while Samuel makes it clear that he could ruin Romy's life with one phone call, she is still his mentor and professional superior and so another layer of power dynamic is formed - making me question how an audience might feel about the characters were the gender roles reversed.
What then makes Babygirl sexier than the likes of 50 Shades of Grey (which sucks)?
Instead of only wanting to gain sexual gratification from dominating and punishing (physically or psychologically) Romy, Harrison senses exactly what she wants and takes on that role with her pleasure as his motivator.
Their sexual connection doesn't feel like a sterile transaction. Nobody is signing a weird shagging contract and Samuel is making up these dominant rules off the cuff, reacting to Romy’s chaotic need for them. They're figuring it out together in their own fucked up, illicit affair kind of way.
When we consider BDSM, and due to Romy and Samuel's dynamic I am considering women within the role of submissive and men as dominant, two things can be true at the same time; consenting adults can enjoy whatever kind of sexual activity that they want and male violence against women is a motivator for some in those spaces.
You can’t get around it. Whether both genders enjoy it or not, it is born, in that dynamic, from the want to dominate women and so I question whether women can ever feel truly sexually liberated when the burden of feminist guilt feels harsher than any punishment your finest dominatrix could inflict?
You're oppressed if you do, you're repressed if you don't. Sex is just another game a girl can't win. So, it's every woman for herself.
That’s what I think is so sexy about Samuel’s character and what audiences have reacted positively to. It’s less about his want to dominate Romy because she is a woman that he is sexually attracted to and more about his want to please her; fulfilling her sexual appetites which, in turn, fulfils her emotionally.
So, despite his shitty tattoos, Samuel is hot because he makes Romy feel safe enough to explore the kinds of things she’s always felt ashamed to enjoy. Whether that’s in the context of an affair or a HR nightmare, it doesn’t really matter, that’s not what this story is worried about.
The film itself is handled a little clumsily by Reijn. Some of the dialogue feels stiff and some of the character choices feel a little ridiculous. I am still not overly convinced I enjoyed it as much as I found it interesting.
Nonetheless, the chemistry between Kidman and Dickenson is really great and their affair will no doubt divide opinions between your own friendship group. Maybe Babygirl has brought a little bit of sexy back to cinema but it’s still not a patch on that Aidan Turner TV tash, sorry.
