Susan Granger’s review of “Babygirl” (A24)
I really don’t know how to review “Babygirl,” a senseless study of a woman who –- after 19 years of marriage – has never admitted to her husband that she cannot orgasm without kinky S&M role-playing, which is odd since he’s a theater director.
Reminiscent of erotic thrillers like “9 ½ Weeks,” “Fifty Shade of Gray” and “Basic Instinct,” it’s all about sex and power. As controlling tech C.E.O. Romy Mathis (Kidman) is walking to work in Manhattan one morning, she’s sexually aroused by the sight of a young man calming a ferocious dog, which is obviously a metaphor about the wild, untamed beast within us.
It turns out that he’s Samuel (British actor Harris Dickinson), an impudent intern starting work at Tensile, her warehouse robotics company. Soon they’ve embarked on a spiky, steamy affair, which is particularly risky for her impeccable personal and professional career. But raw, reckless danger is what Romy thrives on.
“I think you like to be told what to do,” 28-year-old Samuel brazenly observes at one of their first workplace meetings. Later, after months of hooking up in hotel rooms with his subservient cougar boss, he notes: “I could make one call and you lose everything.”
These fetish fantasy-fueled sexual encounters are explicit and graphic – a sadomasochistic challenge which is obviously what appealed to bold, adventurous 57-year-old Kidman who – despite previous raunchy roles in “Dead Calm” and “Eyes Wide Shut” – projects an ‘ice maiden’ image which she’s eager to defrost.
While Dutch writer/director Halina Reijn (“Bodies, Bodies, Bodies”) relates the entire psychodrama from Romy’s female perspective, she never delves into why Romy has never confessed her repressed desire for submissive game-playing behavior to her devoted husband Jacob (Antonio Banderas), who – ironically – is currently directing a production of Ibsen’s “Hedda Gabler.”
(That lack of conversation is reminiscent of “Disclaimer” in which Cate Blanchett’s shame-filled character never told her husband she was raped by a young man while on vacation in Italy.)
On the Granger Gauge of 1 to 10, “Babygirl” is a frustrating 5, playing in theaters.
