‘Babygirl’ is a Steamy Drama Without Serious Heat

Babygirl

★ ★

There’s a moment midway through ‘Babygirl’ that I asked myself, “Is this a good movie?” I find myself asking this of a film occasionally, especially in slower paced dramas like this. My answer at the moment was, “It depends on how they end it.”

Romy (Nicole Kidman) is a powerful corporate executive whose husband Jacob (Antonio Banderas) is a successful Broadway director. They have two teenage daughters, Nora (Vaughan Reilly) and Isabel (Esther McGregor). We first meet them as a family as they start their day. It’s a typical family, settled into their routine.

Antonio Banderas and Nicole Kidman
© 2024 A24

At the office, Romy has been put into a program to mentor someone from a group of interns. The interns get to choose their mentor and Samuel (Harris Dickinson) selects Romy. She tells him she’s too busy to be a mentor and he should find someone else.

There’s something mysterious about Samuel that intrigues Romy as he flirts with her in ways that would normally cause a trip to human resources. This leads to an office kiss between them during a mentoring session. This, of course, sets off an affair that involves a reversal-of-roles sexual power dynamic. In the affair, Samuel is the boss and this seems to be the very thing that Romy has been missing in her love life.

The affair comes with a lot of career and family risk for Romy. Samuel makes good use of making sure she knows what’s at stake to keep the relationship going.

We get flashes of Romy’s childhood. She indicates that she was in a cult as a child and occasionally hints at a dark upbringing. This is never really explored but seems to be why a satisfactory sexual relationship has eluded her prior to Samuel.

Nicole Kidman and Harris Dickinson
© 2024 A24

Samuel is a master manipulator. He knows how to push her buttons and when to do so. His manipulative nature is subtle enough it might be difficult to pick up on. He doesn’t just manipulate the risk Romy is taking by being with him, but seems to have found a way into her psyche as well.

I wish the film explored this more deeply as it would have been far more captivating. It would have also given more meaning to the more demeaning and degrading love scenes. As they are, they’re just uncomfortable to watch and serve little purpose to drive the story towards any meaningful conclusion.

By the time the film ends, the characters seem to get away with the equivalent of a stern warning rather than face any consequences. This is a real let-down because the characters were on a collision course for disaster and could have given us something of relevance to consider as the credits rolled.

There’s a lot that could have gone well for this film, if only it had gone worse for its characters.

Mystery & Thriller, Crime