(Image credit: Nico Tavernis)
Babygirl, starring Nicole Kidman and Harris Dickinson, is a “messy and complicated” portrayal of a tempestuous office romance that director Halina Rain calls “moving” and “darkly funny.”
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Imagine an erotic drama in which Nicole Kidman plays the stylish president of a New York robotics company. Her husband is a swarthy stage director played by Antonio Banderas, and while their love is as passionate as ever, she longs for something more. So when a handsome, sassy young intern played by Harris Dickinson sees her innermost self, the pair soon find themselves illegally using the company’s soundproof offices, putting her job and her marriage at risk.
That’s an apt description of “Baby Girl,” a new film written, directed and produced by Bodies, Bodies, Bodies creator Halina Raine. But your mental image of its titillating twist may not match what you see on screen. What Raine does well is examine what the situation really is, in all its messy complexity. “Bodies, Bodies, Bodies” showed how a country-house murder mystery would play out if the protagonist was a narcissistic idiot. “Baby Girl,” which premiered at the Venice Film Festival on Thursday, feels like a glitzy 1980s Adrian Lyne thriller stripped of its glamor to reveal the confused, contradictory person underneath.
There’s no one more confused than Kidman’s Romy. At work, she’s respected for being calm, driven, and as robotic as the machines that roam the company’s enormous warehouse. At home, she appears to be a devoted wife to her husband, Jacob, and a loving mother to their two daughters. But Rain soon reveals that after having sex with Jacob, Romy goes into another room and watches domination porn on his laptop. It turns out she spent her childhood in a cult or commune, which may have influenced her view of healthy relationships.
Dickinson’s Samuel, meanwhile, is neither sophisticated seducer nor naive young man, but a combination of both that’s hard to define: at times almost psychotically confident and commanding, at other times awkward and tongue-tied, often in the same scene. When these two lost souls become embroiled in an awkward love affair, there are no smoky saxophone sounds on the soundtrack, no images of smooth, glowing skin.
Rain’s raw, awkward, indie-style film has all the scenes you’d expect if Babygirl were a standard Hollywood neo-noir thriller: an intern shows up at the family’s weekend home, a coworker finds out about an affair. But at every turn, Rain digs into the dishonorable realities behind the glamour, as Romy gets Botox injections, struggles to get into a tight-fitting dress, and interrupts a rendezvous in her hotel room because she’s afraid she’ll pee on the carpet. Kidman displays no vanity in these scenes, making this her bravest and best performance in a while.
Baby Girl
Directed by: Halina Rain
Starring: Nicole Kidman, Antonio Banderas, Harris Dickinson
Running time: 1 hour 54 minutes
The clever script also notes that times have changed since Michael Douglas’s characters’ ill-advised flings in the 1980s and 1990s. Romy and Samuel’s risky relationship may be based on her doing everything he says, but he’s keen to discuss company HR policies and the concept of consent before things go too far.
The uneasy rhythm of their relationship keeps the audience on edge, but Romy’s tearful confusion is moving and darkly funny as she bluffs her way through her double life. But ultimately, Baby Girl feels genuinely romantic as Romy and Samuel grope to understand each other better. The film may be uncomfortable, but it’s clear that director Rain loves and respects his flawed characters, even when they’re unsure of how they feel about themselves.
★★★★☆
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