Nicole Kidman and Harris Dickinson are de-stigmatizing BDSM relationships with the aptly-titled “Babygirl.”
The “Eyes Wide Shut” star and “Triangle of Sadness” alum both lead “Bodies Bodies Bodies” filmmaker Halina Reijn’s A24 erotic thriller. “Babygirl” centers on a successful CEO (Kidman) who begins an illicit affair with her much younger intern (Harris Dickinson). The film was first announced in November 2023.
Kidman’s character Romy is a shipping company exec whose marriage to her husband (Antonio Banderas) is lacking a certain eroticism. Enter new intern Samuel (Harris Dickinson), who has no problem dominating his boss Romy outside of the conference room. The duo embark on a dom/sub dynamic, with “Babygirl” not shying away from capturing the ins and outs of kink.
“It’s about desires, your inner thoughts, it’s about secrets, marriage, truth, power, consent, the language [around] sex,” Kidman said about the feature while at the Venice premiere. “It’s told by a woman through her gaze, and that’s what made it so unique. Suddenly, I was going to be in the hands of a woman with this material. It was very deep and very freeing to be able to share those things.”
Victor Slezak, Esther McGregor, and “Talk to Me” breakout Sophie Wilde also star.
Kidman later told Vanity Fair that the production “left me ragged” due to how “exposed” she was onscreen.
“I felt very exposed as an actor, as a woman, as a human being,” Kidman said. “I had to go in and go out like, I need to put my protection back on. What have I just done? Where did I go? What did I do? […] This is something you do and hide in your home videos. It is not a thing that normally is going to be seen by the world.”
Director Reijn explained how “Babygirl” attempts to “shine a light on” fetishes to make audiences “feel less alone with [their] own hidden sexual fantasies and desires.”
IndieWire film editor Ryan Lattanzio wrote in his review that “Babygirl” leans into the complexities of gendered power imbalances.
“Kidman and Dickinson’s chemistry fashioned during an intimate rehearsal period with Reijn is dynamite. What ‘Babygirl’ is not is a movie where Romy’s relationship with Samuel is considered abusive, as much as her position of power makes their affair inherently illicit,” Lattanzio wrote. “But Reijn is no moralist; refreshingly, there are no lessons learned here other than that men and women should probably try talking to each other more about their furtive desires in life and in bed. No one gets punished for what they’re doing here. […] Kidman sells it, as she does everything here, making Romy into one of the great psychosexual screen heroines — a shot straight to the pants in a movie moment where sexuality has been deprioritized for the sake of slogging, obligatory trauma narratives that seek to explain it.”
“Babygirl” premieres December 25 in theaters. Check out the trailer below.
