It’s ironic that for as much as Hollywood loves sexualizing everything from Vanity Fair covers to “who wore it best” surveys, so few films treat adult sexuality as little more than an unsatisfying tease. Why is it so difficult for filmmakers to tell meaningful stories about the most intimate of subjects? Even films ostensibly about sex so often are not. ANORA was more about romantic delusions than sexual intimacy. EYES WIDE SHUT didn’t chronicle a marital sex life, but rather a husband’s sexual jealousy. Even FIFTY SHADES OF GREY was less about ecstasy and more about power games.
Films like BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR and CALL ME BY YOUR NAME smartly examine the sexual connection between lovers and how their passion affects the entirety of their relationship, but such knowing and serious films are few and far between. Now, along comes BABYGIRL, written and directed by Dutch filmmaker Halina Reijn, and while it tries very hard to belong in that rarified air, it barely stands as another immature take on women’s sexuality like that presented in FIFTY SHADES OF GREY, albeit done here with an A-list star.
In BABYGIRL, Nicole Kidman plays another in her string of strong characters whose lives come undone via some sort of sexual drama (BIG LITTLE LIES, THE UNDOING). This time she plays Romy, the hardened and driven CEO of an Amazon-like company who starts an affair with Samuel (Harris Dickinson), a handsome male intern at the office. Romy first becomes captivated by Samuel when he ‘rescues’ her on the street from a barking dog, and then later when he scoffs at her superior position over him. Such attitude intrigues her, and it isn’t long before he’s making moves on her which she all too easily succumbs to in their workspace.
From the get-go, Samuel bosses Romy around, taunting her with monikers like “baby girl”, and forcing her to kneel and crawl before him. The cavalier jerk even makes her slurp up milk from a bowl he’s placed on the floor in front of her during one tryst. It’s seamy stuff at best, if not feeling wholly demeaning. Reijn suggests that Romy is screwed up and goes in for such dehumanizing due to some trauma in her background, but it’s never elaborated upon. Instead, the writer/director paints a portrait of a supremely competent careerist and mother to two needy teens, who goes haywire with this affair. Romy isn’t presented as a particularly kind or loving wife to her sensitive husband Jacob either. He’s played wonderfully well by Antonio Banderas as Jacob does his damnedest to love Romy. He tries to make soulful love to her, but she fakes orgasms to get out of his clutches before retreating to the other room to masturbate to porn on her laptop.
And we’re rooting for Romy…why?
Kidman gives the role her all, even flaunting her nude body repeatedly. The same cannot be said of Dickinson who barely takes his shirt off. And his dead-eyed moping robs the whole shebang of any sexual heat. His blank performance makes all their silly games seem puerile at best. It’s as if he’s trying to live out a sophomoric Penthouse forum letter more than connect with a boss lady who wants to be told what to do now and then. The score and slick production design suggest more lushness than any round of sex we see the two engaging in, and the film even fails to turn a heated pool into a decent romp.
Films like this pretend to be about feminism and the modern battle of the sexes, but they seem dehumanizing to all involved. Sex in American society already has far too much stigma, misplaced guilt, and age-old Puritanical hypocrisy attached to it, even though everyone from sixteen to sixty these days seems to go out of their way to create ‘thirst traps’ in every form of social media. It’s a shame that this film feels so devoid of joy, let alone sex. It’s not an aphrodisiac; it’s a cold shower.
