Babygirl balances eroticism and sexuality in a positive, but still relatively milquetoast, manner. However, in an era where puritan attitudes surrounding sex in media seem to be having a second heyday, Halina Reijn brings forward a much-needed conversation about female-forward representations of sex. In the same vein, however, Babygirl overexplains itself, constantly and needlessly reasserting its right to exist.
The rising emphasis on media literacy has its major ups and minor downs, and hardly any film genre has felt society’s glare just as much as its awe as that of the erotic. For every three completely valid calls for minimizing assault scenes, the average X (formerly known as Twitter) user will certainly find at least one bad take about the portrayal of female sexuality, both in real life and on the screen. It feels as if viewers perceive sex in film as needing complete chastity or the second coming of Secretary (2002). Halina Reijn’s Babygirl is, perhaps, simultaneously the answer to everyone and no one’s prayers.
The premise of Reijn’s film is deliciously basic, if only slightly off-kilter: A young man consensually (most of the time) sexually dominates the powerful intellectual MILF CEO of the automation company he’s interning at. Lana Del Rey’s grating (and implicitly racist) “question for the culture” finally gets some sort of answer as to her plea for spaces that include “the kind of women who are slated mercilessly for being their authentic delicate selves… [whose] stories and voices [get] taken away from them by stronger women.”
Romy is the stronger woman who has spent her whole life shying away from her desire to balance her high-powered executive lifestyle with sex she has emotional, but no physical, control over. She is the mythical lady in the streets and freak in the sheets.
In Romy, Babygirl depicts a shockingly positive portrayal of extremely complex female sexuality and the reality that one’s personal life and one’s sex life can be tenuously tethered without having outright sociological connotations beyond oneself. She is objectively respected within the film by every single character (apart from, at times, her eldest daughter), who all recognize that she is a brilliant Yale graduate with a deeply stressful but incredibly rewarding career.
She has built up Tensile Automation brick by brick, but, at the same time, she allows Samuel (Harris Dickinson), a stubborn young intern with no respect for personal space, to put her in time-out facing the corner of a seedy hotel room right before asking her to crawl towards him like a dog seeking out a treat.
The opening scene of Babygirl sets the film up as one of continuous dichotomies: After faking a sultry, lilting orgasm during disappointing cowgirl with her husband Jacob (Antonio Banderas), Romy gets herself off with quiet, gruff huffs while on the floor, gasping for air before the title screen comes in backed by ominous, teetering instrumentals. When she has her first real orgasm from another person in 19 years, again on the floor but at the hands of Samuel instead, her reaction is animalistic, all keening wails and grunting growls. The camera, in this moment of centralizing Romy’s pleasure, centers her awed, almost afraid, face as she finally has an orgasm.
This is pivotal for her, an experience only underscored by her immediate tears right after. Throughout the first half of the movie, Romy see-saws between refusing to engage with Samuel and apologizing for leading him on due to their power imbalance, and giving in to her submissive urges. This dynamic quickly becomes overdone, however, especially when considering the deadpan intern’s motivations as well.
It would be easy indeed to realize the main characters’ dynamic as one that subverts the typical age gap and power imbalance discussion, which centers around a male boss and a female employee. If there is to be a villain in this movie, the on-the-face answer is Romy as she has direct power over Samuel’s employment. However, by adding dynamic-driven kink-based sex to the mix, Reijn invites viewers to consider the idea of an experience imbalance when it comes to the type of relationship Samuel and Romy have.
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At a pivotal point in the film, Samuel’s manipulative tendencies paired with a surprisingly relevant understanding of BDSM come into play, making for a dominant that is good on paper but functionally inexcusable in his actions. As in a typical workplace power imbalance scenario, he threatens to out Romy’s relationship with him in order to transfer away from under her watchful eye, but only does so in order to get her to say that she will do everything he tells her to sexually, forcing her into a corner sexually.
Technically, and quite overtly in the movie, it is obvious that he’s correct in recognizing that that is, in fact, what she wants from a sexual partnership; however, even as he explains consent and trust as being the foundations upon which a dominant-submissive relationship relies on, he forces her to agree despite any reservations she has about her position of power over him. It is evident that he is better versed in understanding the boundaries of their dynamic than she is, but he utilizes this to get what he wants in the bedroom while her emotions take a sideline to their joint pleasure.
Samuel pursues Romy first, avidly at that. When she asks him how he calmed down a dog that was about to attack her, an event that occurs within the first five minutes of the film, he remarks that he always keeps cookies on him before coyly asking her if she wants one. When she refuses to verbalize an interest in him, he ensures that she is chosen to be his company mentor before continuously harassing her until she caves and agrees to meet with him.
He expects her to be at his beck and call despite her busy schedule, something she secretly craves but find difficulty finding balance with, and leaves a note requesting that she meet him in a seedy hotel for her to find in her high-rise office, which he watches her read through her floor-to-ceiling windows from outside on the street.
He is insolent and petulant, insulting her whenever she attempts to establish boundaries. Samuel shows up unannounced to the home she shares with her husband and children, but gets incredibly upset and tells her she is unattractive and “like a mother” when she tells him their relationship cannot continue. He pushes her to the brink and pulls himself away however he feels with no regard for her emotions as a person beyond a submissive.
Despite their shared foal-like awkwardness as they explore their sexual urges with each other, a stunning directional choice in its own right, Samuel holds an obvious upper-hand in experience with dominance and submission, something he continuously and purposefully holds over Romy’s head. At the same time, he offers her comfort when her oldest daughter is cruel to her, and affirms her when she needs it most.
The movie assumes its audience is totally unaware of contemporary sexual discourse and over explains itself because of this. In between freeing scenes of submission via petplay or genuine depictions of aftercare, Reijn sandwiches moments that are so stereotypical they fall entirely flat: Romy calls herself “dark” and troubled when revealing her fantasies to her husband, and Samuel, after an intense night of dynamic-driven sex, asks his submissive if he is a bad person, intoning sadly, “Sometimes, I scare myself.”
The mechanical elements of Babygirl are vibrant, such as the intense, rhythmic music that plays whenever Samuel and Romy interact, crafted to mirror their first one-on-one mentor meeting — she’d talked about Tensile Automation and wanting “to automate repetitive tasks,” prompting Samuel to infer, much to her chagrin, that she wants “to be told what to do.” The rare birds-eye shot, medium close-up, or extreme close-up always focus on Romy, cementing the film as female-forward both in intention and execution.
The dog metaphor threaded throughout is confusing but visually appealing at the very least, especially towards the end as it parallels Romy achieving sexual satisfaction with Jacob. The situations the main characters find themselves in are often funny, such as when Samuel orders her milk at a bar, which she drinks in full. The characters are human, and infallible ones. There are no villains in the end, just sex.
Babygirl is a solid watch, but nothing to write home about. Basically, Nicole Kidman’s character Romy Mathis is the most eroticized the average movie-goer can handle a woman — specifically, an attractive middle-aged white woman in a position of power — before they get scared.
I’m a PhD student at SMU in Dallas, TX. I received my BA in English from UT Austin (although I originally went in for electrical engineering… life works in mysterious ways). When I’m not poring over theory books or reading for fun, I’m going to concerts, playing games on my PS5, lifting weights, or doing 1000 piece puzzles with my friends.