‘Babygirl’: A kinky thriller about learning to communicate

Professional and personal power dynamics take center stage in Toronto Film Festival selection Babygirl, Halina Reijn's erotic drama from A24. In it, Nicole Kidman plays Romy Mathis, a high-strung tech CEO who has clawed her way up the corporate ladder, but whose life behind bedroom doors—with her director husband Jacob (Antonio Banderas)—leaves something to be desired. When she meets her mysterious new intern, Samuel (Harris Dickinson), a forbidden relationship soon gives way to thrilling complications, as Romy discovers that taking real risks, and being ordered around, turn her on.

As salacious as Babygirl might be, it's primarily a film about communication, and a wildly entertaining one at that. It features bitingly funny moments mixed in with tender aftercare, cantankerous arguments, and downright dangerous scenarios; Romy and Samuel always seem mere inches away from being caught, though that’s part of the allure. For her on-screen work, Kidman won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival this year, and rightly so. Hers is a deeply human performance that runs the gamut of physical and psychological self-doubt, wherein Romy is one half of a sexual equation slowly discovering itself. The other half is Dickinson's Samuel who, though he recognizes something familiar about Romy's desires, is still young and inexperienced, and for him, taking control in the bedroom still entails living, working, and f*cking at the behest of his boss.

From the word go, Reijn establishes the unhealthiest aspect of Romy's marriage: a dishonesty about what she wants and needs. Her husband is a gentle, passionate lover, and their nearly 20-year sex life is still going strong, but Romy hides the fact that she's never achieved an orgasm with Jacob, and must sneak away after the fact to watch BDSM porn in which women are dominated. While she has been a major success story at work, shame and fear have dominated her private life in this respect, which leads her to view Samuel as a kind of liberating force.

As the duo tiptoe around watchful eyes, they begin feeling each other out through minor humiliation rituals—like Romy eating treats out of Samuel's hand—while balancing burgeoning sexual desire with childlike giggles. They seem to know what they want (or at least, they have some abstract idea), but the fetish world is all new to them, and they only have each other to help explore. However, as their tumultuous affair continues, the lines between private and public begin to blur in sudden and darkly hilarious ways; Samuel's job, for instance, begins to involve running errands at Romy's home on the orders of his other bosses, but unbeknownst to her, bringing him into her private orbit. He even gets to know Jacob and Romy's teenage daughters.

Reijn presents these increasing hurdles with her tongue planted firmly in her cheek, twisting each narrative screw just when it seems like a calming new equilibrium has been reached. However, she always takes her characters seriously, including and especially their most confused emotions, which grow increasingly difficult to unpack the deeper the couple gets into their illicit fling. As disembodied deep breaths envelop the soundscape, the dangers of being found out start to feel ever-present—the biggest risk of all—but the novelty of Romy and Samuel's relationship is too satisfying for either one to give up on, even when it threatens their careers.

Romy's position as a powerful woman in industry takes center stage as well, largely thanks to her assistant Esme (Sophie Wilde), who admires her, but projects onto her an idyllic vision of a female boss, who cultivates a healthy work environment that may well be beyond Romy's purview. The gaze of men and women alike defines Romy along parameters with which she may not be comfortable, and though this is a far cry from the discomfort of sexual violation, it falls along the same emotional gradient: being defined through a lack of personal consent.

That Romy finds a sense of affirmation by ceding control is just one layer to Babygirl. Underneath this sits the complex notion of desires long walled off from the outside world. When they're finally let loose, every border starts to blur, leading to festering rage that neither Romy nor Samuel can fully control, or even understand. Kidman and Dickinson throw themselves fearlessly into their roles, which demand not only the utmost physical and emotional vulnerability, but the utmost trust that their director knows what the hell she's doing with her emotionally winding and physically discomforting scenes. But the further these go on, the more at ease Reijin's characters—and eventually, her audience—become, making the very act of watching Babygirl an exercise in building trust akin to the film's own sexual escapades.

Once Reijn and cinematographer Jasper Wolf lock in on Romy's chaotic point of view—through Kidman’s lingering, introspective closeups—all bets are off. The world seems to spin out of control, and the camera spins with it, luring the audience into a risqué romp that soon turns into an erotic thrill ride, during which characters slowly, carefully and daringly flirt with personal boundaries, pushing and prodding at them until Romy recognizes parts of herself that once seemed too terrifying to confront. As much as the film is about learning to communicate with other people—bosses, subordinates, spouses, even children—it's about learning to communicate with oneself, and figuring out how to read one's own desires before projecting them out into the world.

At a time when increased online puritanism has led to a rejection of sexual cinema, Babygirl approaches the physical, and the erotic, as gateways to the self, in deeply entrancing ways.

At a time when increased online puritanism has led to a rejection of sexual cinema, Babygirl approaches the physical, and the erotic, as gateways to the self, in deeply entrancing ways. Few films this year have been more engrossing, or more exciting.

Babygirl will be released in theaters on Dec. 25.