Babygirl

I was incredibly excited for Baby Girl. It’s the follow-up feature from Halina Reijn, who directed Bodies, Bodies, Bodies, which I loved. I thought it managed to balance both comedy and social commentary extremely well. It didn’t feel ham-fisted; it felt very natural. So, going into Baby Girl, I was very excited to see if she could take on a completely different tone.

I will say the film has ostensibly been marketed as an erotic thriller, but neither of those words are ones I would use to describe the film. Sadly, an issue with it is that the erotic nature of the movie is lost on it. It’s not a sexy movie. But the movie presents itself as if it is sexy. It very much feels, in instances, like a tell-don’t-show situation.

You’re often told that what Nicole Kidman’s character is craving are these depraved acts and wanting to be submissive, but really, when all is said and done, their dynamic just boils down to Dom-Sub dynamics. There’s nothing all that tantalizing about their relationship, apart from the fact that it is an affair with a younger man—and that’s fine if the movie didn’t hinge on Nicole Kidman having these deep, dark desires that she can’t get from her husband. It needed to be more sexy.

Never once while watching this did I think it was sexy and that’s an issue when certain scenes are presented as if they should be. In a lot of instances, it actually came off as quite creepy. I adored how we got to explore Nicole Kidman’s character quite a bit—it is her movie, and it’s more of a character study on her. But I think in opting to do this, you lose any sort of semblance of motivation for Harris Dickinson’s character, and that sadly impacts the way you perceive the relationship between the two of them because you can’t really understand why he’s leaning into this.

I don’t want to spoil anything, but as the relationship goes on and things get more tense, it diffuses all that tension and instead manages to wrap up the movie in quite a nice little bow, which sucks as it feels like it’s falling flat on its face.

It’s not horrendous. There are elements that I really enjoyed. I do think it offered some valuable insights into Nicole Kidman’s character. I liked how they played in this gray space with the pair of them—neither of them were right or wrong, and they were unsure about the nature of their relationship. Seeing them figure out their dynamic was so interesting.

I kind of liked the fact that they glossed over a lot of the sexual stuff through montage to explore more character dynamics. However, while I did enjoy this, it also impacts the rhythm of the movie. There are some really poor editing choices, but also some great ones. The film feels meandering in the middle—and not in a good way. The start and end of the movie are really, really fascinating, but the middle becomes this rinse-and-repeat of them exploring their relationship.

It’s sad. I think this was so close to saying something interesting, but sadly, you walk away with the most obvious and easy commentary, which is even more disappointing considering it had room to be so meaningful. In all honesty, the dynamics between Nicole Kidman and the side characters were far more interesting than her actual relationship with this man.

It’s a very well-crafted movie. Nicole Kidman’s performance is incredible. I particularly loved the detail of her moans, which is so weird to say. When she was in a relationship that wasn’t satisfying her, there were these quite feminine, performative moans. And when she became more satisfied, they became primal and guttural. Really, really interesting performance.

Harris Dickinson was great as well, but I wish they gave him more. I do think the film has something interesting to say about love and desire, needs and wants, and how they’re two sides of the same coin—that you can have so much love for a person but not desire them. But I just wish there was more to that.

The score was phenomenal—I really adored that—and the way it was shot. Technically, it is good, but just what it was saying wasn’t all that interesting, sadly