“Babygirl” was released on Christmas day last year and captured audiences across the nation. The film explored a forbidden romance between an uptight business executive and an overzealous intern. It also served as a step-by-step manual on how to be expelled from corporate America.
The film explored female empowerment, unconventional relationships, and the intensity of power and control in the workplace.
Nicole Kidman has graced our screens, once again, to play Romy Mathis, a high-strung and imbalanced business executive of a New York-based electronic company. On the surface, Romy appears to have a perfect life, filled with luxury, a successful theater director husband, and two perfect daughters, all the while being chief executive officer of a Fortune 500 company. Romy’s life is dictated by control and discipline in every aspect. Nevertheless, she desperately craves a release. When a charismatic intern by the name of Samuel comes into her helm she gets her wish.
Samuel’s attitude and lack of subservience startles her and challenges her to question her own identity.
At the beginning of the film, Romy appears to be a one-dimensional and plain character. Upon closer inspection, Romy is a very intriguing and flawed character. For an executive, she’s surprisingly very quick to abdicate and dispense her free will for a man who offers her nothing but imminent peril. She is shown as reckless and insatiable for one thing, not her career or accolades, but an orgasm.
On the other hand, there is Samuel, the calculated villain. Despite being a typical cocky persona, I wouldn’t forecast him as the abhorrent antagonist in this film. From the beginning of the movie, he challenges boundaries by flirting and having several affairs in the workplace. To play devil’s advocate, he pushes the limits and absolutely nobody dares to hold him accountable for his indiscretions. In reality, he’s an absolute menace that’s been released on the lascivious women of New York. Combined with Romy’s sexual frustration, that’s a recipe for disaster.
That intern is played by the charming and desirable Harris Dickinson. Dickinson presents a flamboyant and unconventional personality riddled with red flags. He is a free spirit that simply cannot be contained. Like a moth drawn to a flame, he becomes the object of Romy’s obsession. Before the consummation of their relationship, there is an apparent power struggle between the two for dominance and control, two things both of them are used to having in their arsenal.
The film not only serves as a dark romance but a psychological thriller of the result when two dynamic personalities combust with lust and tension. Romy represents a strong forceful personality with a relentless drive for what she desires, while Samuel is a controlling egomaniac who likes to indulge his strange proclivities. With these two characters used to getting what they want, something’s gotta give. It ends with one relinquishing power to the other, on all fours.
A big element of this film is the intense sexual impropriety, eroticism and overall the power dynamic at play. Both of them enter into the affair without actually discussing boundaries and limits. Romy behind closed doors surrenders every once of her independence to Samuel but at work expects to be the dominant personality. Unbeknownst to Romy, Samuel anticipates controlling and dominating Romy in every aspect of her life, from choosing her diet to when she takes off her clothes. What began as an intriguing chick flick has transformed into a screenplay for a Lifetime movie.
The film had a lot of potential to be great but it was only good. Overall I would rate it a “B.” Both leads possessed a deep magnitude of sexual magnetism but not a lot of chemistry. Dickinson, in the past, has always sported roles that have depicted him as the boy next door or America’s boyfriend. Watching him as a dominant and authoritative personality felt forced and almost like watching a kid being taken to the candy shop for the first time. His performance was mediocre at best.
Nicole Kidman on the other hand delivered and worked for that $10 million. Watching her character stand in the corner, lick milk like a kitten from a bowl and do some risky acts for sexual gratification had me clutching my imaginary pearls.
My biggest critique is for director and screenwriter Halina Reijn. This film had a lot of potential with such prominent actors, I would’ve liked to see Nicole Kidman pay homage to Eyes Wide Shut where she successfully portrays a sexually repressed female who reclaims her identity. I would’ve wanted to see two consenting adults explore and border eroticism in true nature. Reijn used this project to showcase her fantasies and past sexual escapades. But what I was exposed to was a wide age gap up for debate, a woman diminishing her self-worth and not even enjoying it.
The whole narrative in film and media that a woman in control of her sexuality is reckless is quite cliche and tiring. The neverending notion that a woman would simply risk her livelihood for a man who offers her nothing in return is profoundly boring. This film alone serves as a human resources employee field day, but did have an excellent soundtrack.
